The new life Jesus promises.
Following on from last week's talk about who the real Jesus of the gospels is, today we consider the sort of life he promises to bring.
In his interaction with Nicodemus, Jesus promises something more radical than any religious, political or social leader has ever offered. He says that what humanity’s needs goes beyond sociological, economic, or political revolutions, and beyond psychological revolutions. Jesus says humanity's problems all stem from a spiritual problem, so only a spiritual solution will do. He says everyone must be born again. Only with the spiritual cleansing, washing and refreshing of the new birth found in him and by his Spirit, will lives be fundamentally changed.
As God himself, Jesus is uniquely able to provide this for all who turn to him.
By Ed Flint
Invite your friends to Alpha.
With our upcoming Alpha course beginning April 28th, we consider what it is we’re doing when we invite our friends to the course.
Ultimately we’re inviting them to meet Jesus. And He always meets people just as they are.
From his interaction with the Samaritan woman (John 4:1-30) we see that Jesus, fully human, is not afraid to admit his needs. He meets us on equal and humble footing: bestowing dignity, breaking down barriers, treating us equally, offering the supernatural water of life that fully satisfies, and bringing the presence of God into the midst of us. Jesus is the one we’re all made for. And by inviting friends to Alpha we’re saying: come and see!
By Ed Flint
Easter Sunday 2026
The resurrection means everything good will be restored. Because of Jesus’ bodily, historical rising from the dead, a new day has dawned. Just as the power of sin touched every single part of creation at the fall, the power of the resurrection is redeeming every single part of creation since Easter. Sin and death has been swallowed up in the victory of God.
God is restoring everything- paintings and buildings, people and marriages, relationships and families, hearts and bodies, and the whole universe! So, when it comes to the future, we need not be pessimists nor optimists; instead we can be something far more powerful: resurrectionists!
He has risen! Hallelujah!
Live the revolution: do good.
The Sermon on the Mount is not merely about behavior, but about a deep transformation of the heart that enables Kingdom living from the inside out. As we conclude our series, we consider Jesus' closing statement: “do to others what you would have them do to you.”
His “Golden Rule” is the simple yet demanding summary of his teaching to this point. He calls believers not just to avoid harm but to actively pursue good through restoration and generosity toward others. Ultimately, Kingdom people are those who resist judgmentalism, practice self-awareness, and extend to others the same gracious kindness that they themselves receive from God.
By Ed Flint
Alpha Holy Spirit Sunday
In a break from our 'Live the Revolution' series, and at the conclusion our most recent Alpha Course, we dedicate our Sunday Service to the subject of the Holy Spirit: Who is the Holy Spirit? What does the Holy Spirit do? How can we be filled with the Holy Spirit?
The Christian life is not just about faith in Jesus - who He is and what He has done. Putting our faith in Jesus is the vital first step. But the Holy Spirit is the one in whose dimension of life we go on to experience God throughout the rest of our lives. So without Him we have nothing. But with the power of the Spirit in our lives, we can live the fruitful, meaningful, joy-filled, empowered lives we were made for.
By Ed Flint
Live the revolution: for the audience of one.
Having shown what a kingdom heart and the kingdom life looks like, Jesus concludes His Sermon on the Mount with a series of warnings about inhibiting the kingdom life.
The first concerns the desire for approval from anyone other than God our Father. When our motivation to give, pray and fast is clouded by what others think of us, we need to beware. Kingdom People are called to devote themselves to the audience of One - our loving Father in heaven. When we do this we receive the greatest of rewards - more of him - his presence, peace, love, and power.
By Ed Flint
Live the revolution: beyond the goodness of Pharisees.
Matthew 5:17-20
Having announced his kingdom, invited all to enter it, and described that people of the kingdom as salt and light, Jesus elaborates on how kingdom people live.
Our goodness is to surpass that of the Pharisees. This is life beyond legalistic righteousness. So, Jesus hasn’t come to tell us to live righteously, he has come to make us into the sort of people who live righteous lives. His interest is in the heart, not outward appearance.
The challenge to us is this: does following the law come naturally? We become such a person only when we allow the power of God’s love to transform us daily into the kingdom people we have become.
By Ed Flint
Live the revolution: salt and light.
Jesus turns things upside down when it comes to who is invited into his kingdom - it’s everyone, really everyone. What’s more, the invitation to receive the blessing of his kingdom is not dependent on anything that we might deem a qualification or a disqualification. But Jesus doesn’t end his teaching there. And neither must we. Entrance into his kingdom is just the first step.
Jesus continues his Sermon on the Mount by painting a picture of what Kingdom people look like. Fundamentally, they are ontologically changed. Kingdom people are salt and light. They don’t try to be, or should be, or can be salt and light. They are. Such a radical change only happens when we allow God to resurrect us. And we can only be resurrected if we’re willing first to die to what we were.
Salt stops things decaying, makes things pleasurable, and helps things grow. Light is the presence of Jesus shining out of us and redeeming the world. The world needs us to be who we are - salt of the earth and light of the world.
By Ed Flint
Jesus fantastic.
In Paul’s letter to the Colossians (Colossians 1:15-23) he presents Jesus as so attractive as to be utterly compelling. We’re called to do something similar, in our similarly pluralistic context of Los Angeles: to present Jesus as he is--unapologetically the center of the universe.
Jesus is the one everyone is looking for: he’s the only one who fully satisfies us, the only one who is supreme over us, and the only one who continues to sustain us. In a world that is so obviously broken and in pain, let us invite everyone we know to meet him; the one who makes us whole. He’s fantastic.
By Ed Flint
Advent 2025: Prince of Peace.
Christmas declares ‘Glory to God and on earth, peace’. Peace, which is more than just an absence of conflict, but rather everything being right and good with the world, is what God intends for his world. But we know all too well how peace-less the world can be: there’s a lack of peace globally, in our communities, and in our own hearts and minds.
This is because the lasting peace Jesus promises is always dependent on him. And without him, we can never experience the peace He brings. But when we embrace Him as the center of our universe, our community, our personal lives, he does what no-one else can do. He destroys the peacelessness that afflicts us, and re-creates us so that we have peace with God, other people and ourselves. This is the message of Christmas!
By Ed Flint
Bread end of year giving.
Every December, we launch our End of Year Giving Campaign. In this talk, we consider how, as followers of Jesus, we are called to treat money. Paul writes to Timothy with instruction to three groups of people: those who have lost sight of Jesus and who are solely interested in financial gain; those who are materially poor; and those who are wealthy. And, in this context, he exhorts Timothy, and all three groups, to refrain from being distracted.
Our focus is not the love of money, but to take hold of the kingdom of God. It is only here where we are freed from the power money can exert over us to become the generous givers we have been made to be. There is no better use of the resources we have been given than to give them away for the sake of the Kingdom of God.
By Ed Flint
Jesus comforts those in distress.
The Bible never promises us a stress-free life. Indeed, we’re regularly told that, as Christians, we can expect suffering. However we can also always expect God to be our great comforter whatever we face. His comfort is so extraordinarily powerful that even when circumstances are at their most dire, we are lifted up, drawn closer and enlivened in our faith.
God comforts us by his nature, his word, and through the comfort of his people. Isaiah prophesies about God’s comfort coming to his people in distress. In Jesus, and by his Spirit, that same comfort is available to us now and always.
By Ed Flint
Jesus restores what you’ve lost.
Isaiah prophesies the kingdom of Judah’s downfall at the hands of the Assyrians. The people of God are like a tree felled to a stump. But all is not lost. From that stump, the remnant of Israel, God’s Messiah will come, and he will restore all that has been lost.
On a personal level, we all suffer loss to various degrees. Sometimes we’re responsible, other times we’re not. Jesus, our Messiah, full of God’s spirit, comes to restore all that has been lost: our place in creation, our relationship with God, and our mission to the world.
By Ed Flint
Jesus dispels darkness.
Jesus is the prince of peace, the prince of shalom. Shalom is more than just an absence of conflict. It is everything being made complete and right. In our world, we can be very aware of the darkness. The news is often filled with it. And we have darkness closer to home; in our family relationships as well as in our own personal lives, too.
Jesus has come to dispel all darkness and bring an end to all conflict. But He can only do as much as we let Him have access to in our lives. The more we’re able to let our old selves die, and resurrect with Him, the more peace rules our lives and enables us to bring Jesus’ shalom to a world in need.
By Ed Flint
Devoted to growth.
The early church grew at a phenomenal rate. Churches are supposed to grow. This is because God’s will is that every single person know him and be part of his community of love. So, a church that refuses to grow is outside the will of God.
Growth is always the work of God. We’re simply called to participate in what he’s already doing. He builds the waves, our job is to ride them for as long as we’re able. The way we do that is the way the first Christians did it: they were witnessed what Jesus had done in their lives, and they were empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so.
We’re called to witness and be empowered, to be empowered and to witness. When we all do this, the potential for the growth of Jesus’ church is exponential!
By Ed Flint
Devoted to praise.
Worship is an integral part of what it is to be human. All of us are worshippers. But the only thing worthy of our worship is the God who is infinite. Every other object of our worship will eat us alive. By contrast, worship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, means we enter into the life the Trinity has been, is, and will always be enjoying - glorifying one another, and being glorified by one another.
This worship, rather than robbing us of life, brings us to life. When we worship in Spirit (our spirits connecting with his Spirit, by means of the Holy Spirit’s direction) and in Truth (directing our worship solely to Jesus, the crucified and resurrected Lord of Truth) we engage in true worship. The worship that life was meant for.
By Ed Flint
Devoted to that which brings gladness.
‘A gloomy Christian is a contradiction in terms’ said William Barclay.
So where does the deep joy that the New Testament writers so regularly describe come from? It is found not in our circumstances, but in our roots. We are like trees planted by streams of water, drawing on the life of the spirit. When trouble comes, our roots go deeper - so that even when we suffer, we rejoice. This happens only when we give up pursuing happiness first, and pursue instead Jesus’ righteousness.
When we delight in the law of the Lord (his gospel, his lordship, his care for us, his rule of life), then we are blessed, then we are intrinsically, fundamentally happy!
By Ed Flint
Devoted to signs and wonders.
Whilst the text doesn’t explicitly state that the first Christians ‘devoted’ themselves to signs and wonders, it’s clear that the miraculous was an ongoing part of their early Christian experience. This is more than enough of a challenge to us, because for most Christians, the regular experience of the miraculous is not their reality. And yet, the Christian faith is a miraculous faith from start to finish. And Jesus’ clear instruction to us who follow him is to do the things He did, and even greater ones too! So, we would do well to learn to pray for, seek out, and expect Jesus to do miraculous things.
But not for their own sake. Miracles are always signs, not ends in themselves. They signal to Jesus as God the Messiah, the one whom all humanity longs for and seeks. And, they signal that His kingdom has come. As Christians, we’re all called to be part of this signaling work - to preach the good news, heal the sick, and cast out demons. It is what makes our faith so exciting and life-giving!
By Ed Flint
Devoted to the Lord's Supper.
From the beginning, the first Christians celebrated the Lord’s Supper together. The spiritual significance of the meal is past, present and future.
When we take communion we are acknowledging the once and for all work of Jesus’ death in history; we experience his Spirit feeding us, grafting us to him, as well as to one another in the present; and we are reassured of Jesus’ return and the hopeful expectation of heaven. Communion is as integral to our faith now as it was then, and the more we devote ourselves to it, the more we open ourselves to the transformative work of the Spirit.
By Ed Flint
Devoted to the apostles' teaching.
Kicking off our ‘Devoted’ series from Acts, we consider what it means to be devoted to the apostles' teaching.
At Pentecost, 3000 were cut to the heart by the message of the gospel. But their faith did not remain solely in the realm of the emotional. They did not disdain their intellect, but devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.
We do the same - neither prioritizing our emotions nor our minds. Anti-intellectualism is in fact incompatible with the fullness of the Spirit, for the simple fact that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. So, we seek out Godly, intelligent teaching and we submit to being teachable.
But we don’t allow devotion to the apostle’s teaching to be an end in itself. Rather it is the means by which the Spirit flows through us to bring the Kingdom of God to our world.
By Ed Flint