We have come to the end of our walk through Exodus. What a joy it has been to travel together. To see in this story of a nation, the bigger picture of God’s eternal plans to draw all people to himself. We have, as promised at the start, seen pattens of redemption throughout and have bumped into Jesus along the way. Israel’s story is our story and Israel’s God is our God....

As we continue to walk through the book of Exodus together, Moses has ascended Mount Sinai for forty days meeting with God. God reveals to him his plan for priests who were set apart to go in and out of the tabernacle representing a sinful people to a holy God, bringing the blood of sacrificed animals to cover the people’s sin, and bringing the presence of God to the people. We saw in the book of ...

In this week’s service we explore the significance of the Tabernacle. How it played an important symbolic and central role in the worship of God’s people while they journeyed through the desert. We also looked at how the Tabernacle points us towards Jesus, who is our true and better Tabernacle. It was on the cross that Jesus offered himself as the ultimate sacrifice. It was his death which tore th...

My sermon was very much focussed on the motivation for giving. When it comes to generosity, we start with the heart, exposing it to God’s grace, vision, and Spirit. However, Exodus 35-36 also helps us look at the mode of giving. It’s also deeply practical. Let me, therefore, outline four steps for reviewing your giving, particularly to your local church....

I love it when scripture surprises me. As you might imagine, having been a pastor for nearly 30 years I have read a lot of scripture and preached a lot of sermons. However, the Bible still surprises me. Verses that I am sure I have read before can leap out of the page, grab my attention, transform my thinking. This happened to me when preparing this week’s sermon. As I was looking at how the pass...

In this week’s devotional we will be digging deeper into Exodus 33, and also Ephesians 2, to explore what the presence of God means for us and our life. You might want to use this guide in your personal time with God over the course of the week, or in your Life Group or household. In Exodus 33 we see how Moses pleads for God’s presence to be with him and the Israelites, telling God he won’t go on ...

This week in our physical venues and across our Online Venue, we have been celebrating New Ground Sunday. Here at Everyday Church, we are part of a family of churches called Newfrontiers and within that Newfrontiers family we are part of New Ground. A number of years ago, because of growth and a desire to be more missional, Newfrontiers moved from being one family across the world to a wider famil...

We have been looking at the final 6 commandments in Exodus chapter 20 where God the Father declares his laws and seals his covenant with the Israelites. They were pauses on route to the promised land at Mount Sinai. There is a tendency when looking at the 10 commandments, to treat them as a list of rules to follow in order not to be on God’s bad side. The reality is that we get to see God’s heart...

There came a moment in history when God fulfilled one of His many promises. The promise had been that His presence would one day move from a temple, accessible by a small number of priestly, anointed individuals, to being poured out upon men and women from all nations and backgrounds. That which filled a holy sanctuary, hidden away from most, would fill and reside in the hearts of everyone who cal...

The fourth commandment is often treated as if it’s the least important. This is not surprising when you remember that other contenders cover murder and adultery! But on Sunday we considered how learning to build sabbath rhythms into our week actually gets to the very heart of what it means to live Christ centred lives. To approach things from a slightly different angle let’s look at Mary and Mart...

God is the only true God, the one that is to have all our devotion, our first love, our whole heart. God is passionate for our love as he loves us passionately. As a loving Father, God knows that only by worshipping him will we experience the fullness of the life he has created us for, and that worshipping anything else, might that be our career, our self-image, a position of influence and power. ...

We have reached the halfway point in our walk through the book of Exodus. We have reached the point that the Hollywood films usually finish with – in fact, they often finish just the other side of the Red Sea. In our sermon this week we have reminded ourselves that God draws the people out of Egypt to draw them into relationship. God rescues families to form them into a people, a nation, a kingdom...

Welcome to this week’s Devotion. In our walk through Exodus, we arrived at Exodus 16-17. In our sermon this week, Cameron helpfully unpacked these two chapters that speak of God’s wonderful commitment to provide for his people as they walked out of Egypt and through the wilderness; manna, quail, water, clothes and shoes that didn’t wear out. Time after time God graciously provides. Time after tim...

I sometimes wonder whether we have lost the art of spontaneous worship. I love the songs we sing at Everyday Church, but I also know in my life, I have seen God move in spectacular ways, but I often forget to play that back to Him in worship. I have more than enough material to write songs of my own! Don’t mishear me, I am very grateful for the gifted worship leaders that we have in and out of our...

Hopefully, you will remember our Vision & Values series from January and February of this year. We spent six weeks unpacking the statement: “Who we are and why we are here”. We unpacked those eight words, with seven key words: Son – Father – Spirit – Grace – Community – Kingdom – Love We reminded ourselves that our purpose flows out of our identity – we are Kingdom bringers because we are imag...

Death separates us from one another, that is why funerals are so painful as we are forced to face up to that reality. But the Easter truth that I love to proclaim at the funerals is that death can never separate a child of God from the love of God. In 1 Corinthians 15:20-22 Paul goes on to say, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For ...

As those of you who know me know, I love Christmas. I love celebrating the birth of Jesus. I love all the biblical truth that we read and sing in that season. I love our family and church traditions that have built up over the years. But – Christmas would be irrelevant if it wasn’t for this week – if it wasn’t for the cross and the death of Jesus. We celebrate birthdays, we generally do not estab...

We’re now on week 5 of our walk through the book of Exodus, the 2nd book in the Bible. And I want to share some thoughts to help you to pick up a specific theme that reoccurs throughout chapters 5-11 in particular. We’re considering this week the concept that someone can have a hardened heart towards God; as demonstrated over and over again by Pharaoh (King of Egypt). Other parts of the Bible ref...

Exodus chapters 7 to 10 lead us through Moses’ confrontations with Pharaoh, with, as David Pawson says, words followed by works, discourse followed by destruction. The plagues reveal both God’s justice and mercy - his grace in giving warning before final judgement and his power and sovereignty over the Egyptian gods and Pharaoh. But most of all a demonstration to both the Israelites, Egyptians and...

Moses is without doubt one of the heroes of scripture. A leader who managed to lead 2 million people right to the edge of the Promised Land. A leader who took up leadership at 80 years of age and led for 40 years. A man who suffered abuse, grumbling, open revolt, great victories and tragic disappointments. It would be easy to view him as a superhuman. A man totally different to you and me. Howeve...