St John's Presbyterian Church, Bendigo, Australia.
Welcome
As one of the many churches in Bendigo, we are a community of Christians of all ages, reformed and evangelical in our theology and practise.
We meet at 10:30am every Sunday (9:30am on Good Friday and Christmas Day) on the corner of Forest and MacKenzie Streets, Bendigo.
You can also catch us on 105.1 Life FM, each Sunday at 9am.
We confess faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and rejoice in the salvation He freely gives His people by His grace. In response to God’s goodness in this way, we seek to love God in return and seek to share what we have come to know with the people of Bendigo and surrounds.
Are you searching for more about this salvation, what it means to be a Christian or what is so good about the good news of the gospel of the Lord Jesus? We’d love to meet you and answer any questions you have. Or maybe you have something you’d like us to pray about? Why not contact us and let us know?
Together with Eaglehawk PC and Reforming, Bendigo East PC, we form the three Presbyterian ‘sister’ churches in Bendigo.
The last words spoken by dying people can be sad, weird or anything in between. Elvis Presley said, “I’m going to the bathroom to read.” Joseph Wright was a linguist who edited the English Dialect Dictionary. His last word was “Dictionary.” Multimillionaire, Richard Mellon enjoyed a game of Tag with his brother through seven decades of his life. When dying, Richard whispered, “Last tag” to his brother who then was “It” for four years until his death. In John 19:30 we find read that the last words of Jesus were, ‘It is finished’. But what was it that was finished? His suffering? The drink he’d been offered?
The Apostle John wrote in the common Greek of the day and in that language, Jesus said just one word, which has this meaning, ‘It is finished, it stands finished and it will always be finished’. The death of Jesus was no accident. He willingly embraced the cross. His death was not an example either. His death was a payment. By saying ‘it is finished’, Jesus expressed that what he had come to do – to rescue God’s people – and that was now complete. He paid a debt that wasn’t his, leaving absolutely nothing to pay.
See, salvation is God’s work on our behalf. It is a gift from God that is received by faith. Everything hinges on what Jesus completed. And what’s more, this last word of Jesus is a lifeline to those who believe. Call on Him. He will save you or else He must speak that last word about you.
After estabslising what believers should do in response to God’s grace with their lives (Romans 12:1) and their minds (Romans 12:2), Paul progresses the way that this response to grace should affect the way we treat each other in the body of Christ (Romans 12:3-8). Here, Paul points out that we are one body with different gifts and that these gifts are gifts of grace (Greek: Charismata (gifts), Charis (grace)) for the building up of the body. The way we serve each other will indicate the way in which we have learned to give ourselves as living sacrifices and just how much our minds have been transformed by grace.
Message
Outline
• The third in this series • What we’ve learned… • Outward expression of inner transformation • See how Paul points us to the character traits of …
Walking in humility (v.3)
Living in harmony (v.4-5)
Serving with fidelity (v.6-8)
The parable of the tea bag The healthy church…. You are the body of Christ