Sermons
Listen, watch or read sermons from Manchester Lutheran Church, and explore them through the Christian year.
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Am I in plan B, C or Z of a life that should be so much better?
Am I in plan B, C or Z of a life that should be so much better? A painful breakup. A missed opportunity. A relationship off the rails. A bad career event. A chronic illness that changed everything. A family that fell apart. A drug habit. Every single one of us has reasons that…
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How can I believe without evidence?
How can I believe without evidence? This is perhaps the single biggest stumbling block of our modern age. The biggest objection our friends and family have to Jesus. And, if we’re honest, it is a question we often struggle with. Christians have struggled with this question throughout history… …and tried to come up with various…
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What does God do when you fail Him?
What does God do when you fail Him? So many people say they’ll come to church, but then don’t, because… they feel bad. They know they do things wrong… …they know they’re not a good person… …and they feel scared they’ll feel that way if they come on a Sunday. Many of us here feel…
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Should the church try to transform politics?
Should the church try to transform politics? Many people claim that the church should be explicitly political. On Wednesday, Anne and I met someone at the Humanist Society who claimed: “Jesus absolutely wanted to start a social revolution.” For decades, significant and popular movements in the UK, have claimed that political and social transformation is…
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Why do people hate Jesus’ undeserved love?
Why do people hate Jesus’ undeserved love? This week I told a young Muslim man that Jesus loves him unconditionally and has freely forgiven him. And he was angry and frustrated at this. And you’ve had conversations like that haven’t you? Perhaps with an atheist, an LGBTQ+ friend, a religious leader, or even someone inside…
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Where can I get enough?
Where can I get enough? Every single one of us here knows what it feels like not to be able to make ends meet: Money. Security. Safety. Resources. Savings. Debt. We all know what it’s like for words like these to cause massive, massive stress and anxiety. And God understands too. Many places in the…
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How can good defeat evil?
How can good defeat evil? There is evil all over Manchester. So many people are trapped in poverty: no job, no home, no way to keep sanitary, in constant danger of theft, malnutrition, sores and sickness from poor hygiene. People are trapped by alcohol, drugs, other addictions. And in our lives each of you face…
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When God is silent—what then?
When God is silent—what then? When I was 8, a boy said to me in the school playground: I’m going to pray the school floods tomorrow. If it doesn’t—that proves there isn’t a God. Last week I met an atheist in central Manchester who works at Manchester University, he said: The fact that people pray…
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Where does evil come from?
Where does evil come from? This world is broken. And our natural reaction to that is to blame God. Many objections to the Christian faith centre around this one idea: That if there’s evil in the world, and God is all powerful, then the evil must be his fault. Now, God explicitly tells us in…
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Why does the Bible make no sense?
Because of our explanation of fasting earlier, today’s sermon is particularly short, there’s less time to explain things. So, if you have any questions, do please ask them over coffee afterwards. Why does the Bible make no sense? It’s got to be the most common theme in the comments on our online YouTube Shorts: “Prove…
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If God’s Word is so powerful, why isn’t everyone a Christian?
If God’s Word is so powerful, why isn’t everyone a Christian? In his famous book “The God Delusion” Richard Dawkins argues that every religion doesn’t believe in the gods of all the other religions. And so the only difference for him as an atheist is: he doesn’t believe in one more. He’s making an assumption…
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Don’t I deserve to go to heaven?
Don’t I deserve to go to heaven? My job is to talk about Jesus. And every week I talk to people on the street, online, in their homes… And one attitude I hear a lot is: “I’m a pretty good person, and God owes me stuff.” The last few weeks we’ve talked a bit about…