New City Church Milton Keynes

In Genesis 28, Jacob has an encounter with God, through a dream. In this talk, Richard Wardman shows us how much Jacob is being transformed. Like many of us, Jacob finds that the consequences of past actions can affect our present lives; the crunch is how we deal with them: finding God’s mercy and forgiveness and doing our best (with his strength) to do the right things and do away with the wrong actions that affect our walk with God. If it sounds so easy, why do many of us have difficulty doing it?

When Jacob was on the run from his brother and father’s anger, he came to a place that he thought was nowhere special. He went to sleep – and had a dream that changed the course of his life. He had an encounter with God that changed his beliefs, and because of that, changed his actions. God was no longer the God of his father and grandfather, but his own master and protector. Listen on to find out how and why this happened…

We continue in our exploration of the life of Jacob, and what a dysfunctional family we find: a father and mother who play favourites between their sons, the eldest son who is careless about his role in the family, and a mother’s boy who is not above swindling his brother and his father. But despite all that, Richard Wardman brings us a message of how gracious God is towards us, even if we sometimes feel that we have lied or cheated: God can still bless us as we come to Him in our need.

Now it’s Autumn, we start a new series in Genesis, on the life of Jacob. Richard Wardman kicks off this series by looking at Isaac, Jacob’s father. He asks the question, “Are we looking at the details of how God will provide for us, or the big picture?”

Do you feel weak in the face of the pressures of modern life? Overwhelmed? Unable to cope? So did the greatest king of Israel, David, when faced with having to march from the north to the south of his kingdom to overcome an enemy attack. Psalm 60 tells us how he made the physical journey, and a greater journey from weakness to trusting not in his own ability but God’s mighty power. NB The reading in this recording starts at Psalm 60 v 2, so you might want to read the whole Psalm before you listen to the recording.  

What are you waiting for? Most people seem to be waiting for something: a job, a family, to be better people – the list is endless. It’s the same in the Bible: in individual stories, people are often waiting for a change to happen. In fact, in this talk, Richard Wardman says that it is the Biblical pattern to be waiting, because the whole of Jewish History is waiting for Jesus, and since then, we are waiting for his return. He goes further: “Waiting is not just inevitable, it is vital“. Listen in to see why waiting is an important spiritual season. Note: we want to apologize that the reading and the introduction to this talk are missing because of technical problems with the recording device. We have summarized Richard’s opening remarks, and you will profit from reading Psalm 37 before listening to the talk.

How do you feel spiritually: “yay!” or “meh”? Most of us have spiritual seasons, some joyful and some not so joyful. In fact, Richard Wardman, tells us in this talk that we can sometimes be running on empty, as far as our spirits are concerned. Listen on to hear what Richard has to say about recognizing the signs of emptiness and what we can do about it.  

In this, the second of our summer series in Psalms looking at “Spiritual Seasons”, Richard Wardman talks about joy in the Lord and how to find it. There’s an old statement of the faith which talks about joy being central to our purpose as human beings: Q. What is the chief end of man? A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever Listen on to see how focusing on God and His word will help you to increase your joy, and make sure that it focuses on God rather than politics, the cricket score or keeping up with the neighbours.

The Bible is all about the Good News of Jesus Christ, isn’t it? And yet, bad things do happen in all of our lives. In this first talk on a series on the spiritual seasons which we see portrayed in Psalms, Richard Wardman speaks to us about how we can handle bad news because of the Good News that Jesus died in our place. We welcome Richard back from his sabbatical.    

Today, one of our leaders, Gavin Naylor, talks to us about God’s way of expressing real love to one another in the setting of the Church family. Listen on to see what the Apostle Paul urges us to do in order to behave as people saved by God’s compassion and sacrifice.