Sermons from open icon baptist church

Paul in Athens, a Muslim Uber driver, and a Georgian bishop walk into a sermon — and together reframe what Christian interfaith encounter could look like.

Philip asked Jesus to show him God. The answer dismantles centuries of angry-God theology — and exposes the retributive impulse hiding in all of us.

Jesus came that we might have life in abundance — but abundant life can't be hoarded. The moment we try to secure it for ourselves at others' expense, it stops being life at all.

When the executed one comes back, everyone expects retribution. The shock of resurrection is that he doesn't.

Psalm 16 began as a farmer's prayer about good land and steady faith — and became something bigger without leaving the earth behind.

The resurrection doesn't restore what we lost — it reveals what we were always becoming: living icons through whom the world might glimpse the life of God.

When Jesus says "I am," he's not just making a claim — he's pulling a thread that runs from a burning bush through a valley of dry bones to a man walking out of a tomb.

The desire for a fair universe is real and grief-filled – but Jesus steps outside that framework entirely, and invites us into something better.

Context changes everything. Where, when and how we encounter life changes what we seek and long for from God and faith. Adaptive faith allows for the constancy of God in our ever-changing lives. It also requires us to be fluid - like water!

A church discerns its new name while remembering that identity is not possession, but a journey of love shaped by God’s call to be a blessing.

In a world ruled by suspicion and blame, the gospel announces an abundance that was never earned and cannot run out.

Jesus’ Transfiguration reveals God’s liberating glory, calling us to justice, humility, and fearless love amid oppression.

Jesus calls us to be salt and light by living a public embodied faith that tells the truth, resists indifferent silence, and makes God’s justice and love visible in the world.

The call to live the beatitudes is not about turning them into a guilt-inducing to-do list, but about living a life that is a blessing to others.

In both the Christian church as well as the wider world, there is increasing division. Is there a way we can become genuine peacemakers in both church and world?

Salvation – reconciliation with God and with one another – is relational rather than transactional, and it begins with a willingness to see, listen and learn.

Insert variable An evolving understanding of being God's chosen people reveals the call to focus on being a blessing to others and the world.

Epiphany reminds us that we have no monopoly on the truth and always have more to learn from people of other faiths and backgrounds.

At New Year we are called to see God's grand vision of fullness and abundance for all the world, and reset our sense of mission accordingly.

The hope born at Christmas does not erase, deny, or hide from the horror of a violent world, but meets us in the midst of it.

Confused feelings in the aftermath of the Bondi massacre are a window into the ongoing need for healing and transformation in our own hearts.

Isaiah 35 declares joy and courage and gladness, for those stuck in the wilderness and dry lands. Joy for the weak hands, the feeble knees and the fearful hearts.

Hope is a courageous and active stance towards life which is nourished in those who attend to the voice of God in Scripture.

The coming Christ will do whatever he can to get through our defences.

To name Christ as King is to identify ourselves as dissenters to the claims of any other authority and to critique all power-mongering.

Jesus warns us that disasters are ubiquitous and do not all herald the end of time, and calls us to persevere in the life of love even when we are blamed and persecuted.

As societies collapse under the weight of their own sin, God's promises stand firm and we are called to persevere in faith and righteousness.

The saints of God are engaged in a war between conflicting empires battling for control of the world, but Jesus has radically transformed our understanding of how we fight.

When we respond to others with judgement and contempt instead of empathy and compassion, we fail to understand God and live God’s love for others.

The relationship between God’s work and our work in salvation is not a puzzle to be solved, but a mystery to be lived in prayer and faithful discipleship.

Jesus constantly seeks to upend our prejudices in order to breakdown and overcome our divisive tribalism.

Healthy spirituality requires an honesty about our experience of pain and confusion in the real world, and that means that lamentation is a part of healthy prayer.

Even in the face of a catastrophic collapse of the world as we know it, God calls us to imagine and invest in a beautiful future.

Hope for our troubled world requires turning anger into tears, resentment into prayers, and financial power into generosity.

In order to find our way into the good news of life in all its fullness, we need to first stop denying and distracting ourselves from the bad news we are drowning in.

Despite first appearances, Jesus’s call to “count the cost” of following him is not so much about ensuring we can succeed as it is about ensuring we can faithfully persevere in the face of failure.

In the face of social breakdown and environmental catastrophe, we are called, not to angry protest, but to creative expressions of love, compassion, and hospitality.

Our call to bear witness to the culture of God comes at a time when we face the real prospect of doom and destruction, and so must contend with that.

In today's parable, Jesus teaches us how to approach God as both Waiter and Thief.

A chat about Colossians 3 and Paul's encouragement for us to have the mindset of Jesus.

A sermon on Luke 11:1-13 by the Revd Geoff Leslie...

In difficult times, the simple virtues of love, humility, and non-judgement are the starting point of faithful living.

A sermon by Major Sandra McLean of the Salvation Army...

We all get trapped in demonic and dehumanising social structures, but Jesus unmasks the truth so that we can be set free.

When we fear for our own safety, we condone the violence that promises to protect us, and we use religion to justify it, but Jesus wants to free us to rise above the fear without resorting to hatred and violence.

The Christian understanding of God as Trinity is not so much something you have to make sense of, but a call to recognise that God is by nature relational, and that we are invited into the triune relationship of love.

The Church born when God poured out the Holy Spirit, is one in which barriers of ethnicity, language, sex, age, and social status are transcended and all are equal in Christ.

Christ’s story - the crucifixion of the truly good and its resurrection and coming victory - is the whole story of God’s work in the world and the whole story of the Bible.

The ascension is the completion of the cosmic liturgy that frees us from our entanglement in sin, lifts us into the holy of holies, and sends us forth as the body of Christ for the world.

Jesus wants to heal us from all that would diminish us, and he also wants us to cooperate with that by really wanting it and envisioning ourselves free.