Peter’s first sermon at Pentecost in Jerusalem is simple and yet so powerful. It provokes a strong response in the Jews who witnessed the work of the Holy Spirit. It’s useful to look at the response of these crowds and compare it to our own response to the Gospel and the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Have we been cut to the heart by our own sin and Christ’s self-sacrificial mercy? If we have - then do we grasp and cling to the understanding of His complete power and authority over every detail of our lives? When we treasure this realisation we have a powerful hope that He can use to carry us through anything.

After the disciples watched Jesus ascend into heaven, they went to Jerusalem and waited. And it was worth the wait. One Pentecost, a Jewish festival, God sent the Holy Spirit to empower the disciples to build the church. The event is extra-ordinary and the impact has been felt through the ages and is in effect in our lives right now. Today we learn the significance of the events at Pentecost, and what it means for us today.

There’s a lot of debate about whether the choosing of Matthias was a mistake by Peter or not. Was Paul meant to be the twelfth Apostle? The Bible never explicitly says, but we can learn so much about God’s sovereignty and our responsibility before Him who knows all things and decides all things from the beginning. Matthias is a beautiful example of a faithful and largely anonymous servant of God being rewarded for His faith.

The book of Acts shows us how God patiently and powerfully perseveres through His plan until every one of His promises are fulfilled. It urges us to do the little things in faith and obedience until God does the big things through His power and for His glory. Acts encourages us to do this and two other things. Don’t waste your life, we don’t know when He’ll return and and our opportunity to be part of His plan passes. Don’t give up, God never does, and He never fails.

Jesus makes the most of every opportunity to glorify God and see His will done. He calls us to do the same, “take up your cross and follow and follow Him”. The closing chapters of Luke not only call us to do this, but show us how. Jesus demonstrates this clearly to the bitter end, and even shows what happens when others follow His call. The world is full of opportunities to achieve all manner of things, what are we using our opportunities for, and what will be the ultimate result of all our efforts?

We’ve been looking at how Jesus uses every opportunity to teach through everyday occurrences. Today, we look at the remarkable Last Supper. There is a lot we can learn from Jesus by the way He reacts to circumstances. But in this scripture, He uses the Last Supper to provide the disciples and us with some potent thoughts which we need to apply to our everyday lives. As we will see, the part we need to play is to take our place at the Lord’s Table.

Jesus uses every opportunity to it's fullest. In Luke 14 He uses the events around a meal at a Pharisee's home to teach on humility. Humility is thinking less about ourselves so that we can think more about God's grace, God's glory and God's will. Comparing at the way the Pharisees and Jesus use the same opportunities differently gives us a chance to learn to be more like Jesus, to embrace humility and live for God's will and glory by trusting in His grace.

Everyday circumstances offer opportunities for us to learn about Jesus and to learn to be more like Him. They also offer us opportunities to teach others, especially our children the very same things. In this short series entitled “taking opportunities”, Jesus shows how He takes every day situations and uses them to teach the truth, and bring people into a knowledge of Him and the freedom of forgiveness from their sin.

In a passionate and personal argument, Paul summarises the difference between true and false teachers and the power and beauty of the One True Gospel of Jesus Christ. It leaves us with a clear way of avoiding false teachers, but also of living out an authentic and committed faith In Jesus Christ.

Galatians focuses on the difference between the Gospel of Jesus and other false gospels. It contrasts the belief in self against the belief in the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ and His loving mercy towards us. When we really trust that we are saved by faith alone by God’s grace alone, it profoundly affects the way we behave. Having the humility that comes from confessing our own weakness and need for grace helps us to be more merciful and gracious in the way we treat each other. Are we treating one another in a way that is consistent with the Gospel of Jesus?

The latter part of Galatians 5 reveals that everything we humans do, is motivated by a pursuit of love joy and peace. When we pursue God however, we experience love, joy and peace through His Holy Spirit. When we pursue these in the flesh, we end up in grabbing at substitutes and falling to sin. So how do we pursue God and embrace the love, joy and peace that comes only from Him and has no substitute? Philippians 4 is one of many passages which give us practical instructions on doing exactly this.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is too often reduced to being only a way to avoid God’s punishment for our sins. The Gospel doesn’t just help us to die in peace, it empowers us to live in peace, in love and in joy. When we don’t realise this, we’re prone to looking elsewhere, whether in legalism, liberalism or any other “ism”. Jesus Christ is enough for all our lives and for every aspect of our lives. He came that we may have life and life in abundance - and that doesn’t mean material wealth or prosperity or a life of ideal circumstances - it means a life of love, joy and peace - regardless of our circumstances.

The legalist believes that we can legislate morality, we can force people to behave by threat of punishment. Cancel culture has formed under this delusion, it says “you must treat me this way or face the consequence”. The Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us to say “I will treat you with love because of His great love for me”. God proves through Scripture and the Gospel of Jesus Christ that the only way to change people is through His love. We are set free by God’s grace and mercy by believing that Jesus diied in our place to take our punishment. If we want this liberty without loving others, then we will be left deluded that we have a licence to do whatever makes us feel good. When we embrace our liberty in Christ and respond in love then we have real freedom, freedom to do what God created us to do.

Galatians chapter five gives some very simple advice. Being made right with God is simple, and staying right with Him is too, but it’s not always easy and takes patience and perseverance, especially since it will come with tough times. We are encouraged to keep life simple, avoid seemingly trivial sins, and keep doing the little things right, in love and in faith in Jesus Christ, let God deal with the big stuff.

God’s plans are perfect and transcend all peoples and generations. Tough times bring temptation, temptation to take away our pain and leave us in peace by trusting in a substitute for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul uses the lives of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac to show us God’s perfect plans and how careful we need to be not to reject or resist them. The temptations can be subtle and so deceitful, we need to be humble, patient, persevere through persecution, rooted in Scripture and constantly reminded of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no substitute or additive to God’s grace through Him.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between true and false teaching. The Holy Spirit contrasts the difference, not only through the inspired teaching of Paul but by inspired actions and their supernatural consequences. Galatians 4:12-20 provides a crystal clear example of speaking the truth in love, a core principle of the Christian Faith, and only possible by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. The Gospel speaks the truth in love, false teaching lies for selfish gain.

This week, we take a break from Galatians to celebrate a family service, run by the youth. The theme is salt and light. In His sermon on the mount, in the Beatitudes, Jesus tells His people that they are to be the salt and light of the world. The message could never be more relevant, we are living in a dark, corrupt and decaying world. Christians need to be salt to stop the decay and light, to shine into the darkness and to bring God’s people into His light. Enjoy, as we take a look at what this means to be Christians and to bring Salt and Light into the world that desperately needs it.

When we’re crying out for help and we feel that God is not answering us how and when we want Him to, we can become desperate and try get relief elsewhere. This is usually when we try to use good things in a bad way or think we can use bad things for a good purpose. This passage of Scripture highlights how we are lost without Christ, and how we push Him away when we try to add anything to the Gospel. We we place anything before Him we are not adding to Him but risk losing our relationship with Him.

When we try and make ourselves right with God and cling to ritual and man-made efforts to earn God’s approval we’re yearning for a time in history that has passed, and is no more. The people in the Church of Galatia were being deceived into longing for something that doesn’t exist, when they already had something so much better. God’s Grace, and the promises of God that come by His grace, are infinitely better than the law and rituals that were there to lead us to Jesus. Now that He has come, and given His life for us, we must also look forward, live in the present, in gratitude for His grace, and strive towards the glorious future that He has promised to those who love Him.