Door of Hope Christian Church

#ChristmasPrayer

“So Christmas is a season to give. It's lovely to give presents, but a more precious gift that we can give to people is praying for them. Not everyone can afford presents, but everyone can pray. Do prayers matter? When we pray, God hears us and answers us according to his love and what he thinks is best for us and the world.”

#TrustGod

“This prayer is at rock bottom, and the prayer is waiting. What does that say about him? How patient are you when things are tough? How willing are you to wait and be still, to not launch into action, but to just be patient before the Lord? This Psalm is worthy of praying door of hope because it reminds us that God is so trustworthy and so good and so full of hope and so merciful that when we are at our rock bottom, we can do nothing and wait, and God will go to work. He is at work.”

#GodsWisdom

“God's not a vending machine, and he's not a robot. When we pray, God can say, yeah, okay. I'll do that. Or no, not doing that. Or, yeah, that's a good idea. Yes, but wait a while. Or he will say, hey, actually, I have a better idea. Right? Which answer he gives depends on his great love for us and his wisdom for the world. He loves us, not just me, not just you. He loves your enemies too. So whatever answer he gives is because he loves us and he does what he thinks is best in the situation.”

#TrustGodsPlan

“I know for myself, there are times that I'm like, lord, I wanna know the whole plan. I wanna have that knowledge that you have for this whole thing. But god is not just where we are here with the knowledge that we have. He's three, six, nine, a thousand steps ahead of us. And sometimes when we ask, god, I wanna see the whole plan. I want to know what you know, and he doesn't perceive to show it. It's not because he's seemingly silent or doesn't want to speak, but because he loves us and loves you so much and knows us so deeply that he doesn't wanna crush us with the weight of this knowledge. We are fully known by the father, fully seen, and fully loved.”

#PsalmsInTheDarkness

“coming back to the Psalms, they don't allow us to deny the darkness. Think about your complaints to God. Think about the things that you're struggling with at the moment. Psalms invite us to say it's okay to go through darkness. It's okay to go through pain. It's okay to experience hardship. Why? Because it's precisely in that darkness where Jesus is found.”

#TransformativeCommunity

“Relationships without friction might feel comfortable, but comfort and formation are not compatible. I'll say it again. Comfort and formation are not compatible. Living with people was not as comfortable for us as the hotels we stayed in, but we grew. Relationships deepened, and we now have a shared meaning and significance from the places that we explored together. If we are to live the gospel, we must enter into transforming community to do it. And I see people in our community doing it.”

#HopeInSuffering

“Jesus lived this door of hope. He lived hope in suffering because he knew who he was and who God was. Suffering is a place where we can experience the depth and width and height and richness of this God who holds us. And you may be able to reflect on times where you haven't ever experienced God like this before. Suffering is not pointless. It brings us to a place of watching and waiting for hope to come.”

#GodNeverChanges

“So, if he was with you in the past, he will be with you in the future. I use that one a lot because I lost my job years ago. I was fired. I had big conflict at work, very, unfair things that happened to me. And I was able to deal with that, not for my own strength. I look back and I say, there is no way that I will be able to do it by myself, but was... Got holding me. So now I'm a I'm a person full of fears, and I will share that with you today. I'm full of fears. What is going to happen with my kids, with my wife, with my country, with my parents? They are forty eight hours of flight. I will not be able to be there if something happened. What is going to happen with my work? I'm responsible for 200 families, our Tasmanian families. What if I take the wrong decision and jeopardize these families? I'm full of fears. However, I push myself to remind myself on this March, god doesn't change. And if he was with you on that difficult time, he will be, because we change, but he doesn't.”

#DecisiveFaith

“A decisive move of faith is recognizing that as I'm on my pilgrimage with the Lord and with others, there are gonna be moments where I know things are gonna be hard and I keep going. That's a decisive move of faith. It also requires faith when you know that things will change because of the hope that we have, and you know that we can trust the Lord, and actually requires faith to step even further knowing that things will get better. And then it starts all over again.”

#PrayFirst

“Before you check-in with Google or ChatGPT, look higher. Talk to God first. I hear giggles because I think a lot we we go to ChatGPT first these days. Hey, AI. Before we even talk to our family, look higher. Talk to God first. not saying don't do these things. Okay? I'm saying talk to God first. That's looking up to God who made the heaven, earth, and mountains. That's looking higher. That's trusting the creator instead of creation.”

#GodSeesYou

“Our God is Elroy. He's the God who sees. He sees the tears that you cry in your room. He sees what you're going through in the private. You might come to church, raise your hands, and worship and praise, but yet you go in your room and you cry yourself to sleep. And you say, God, I'm here to tell you that he sees you. He is a he's El Roy. He is a God who sees.”

#LovedWhereIAm

“Even on the pilgrimage, many times I felt lost. And I've had to sit and wait it out after trying other ways. I've actually run away. I've been depressed. And once even I even thought my my life was all over and in great despair. And since then, I've had twenty wonderful years at Door of Hope. I've pretended I've needed to be right. My pilgrimage been messy, full of darkness and light, yet I'm often overwhelmed and in tears because of god's steady presence of faithfulness and his love. I've had to learn I'm loved where I am. God doesn't condemn. God has totally dealt with my guilt, shame, disappointment, sadness. am blessed, and I keep orienting my life towards the way, Jesus.”

#AnchorForGenerations

“In this picture of our spiritual geography that we are closing today, this anchor, that is Jesus, could be the jacket on the snow or could be the umbrella on the middle of the rain. That's the anchor, and that's what we trespass to our next generation, to our kids, to our children. Jesus, we will love, to be honest, we will love to hear, okay, I'm not going to be your anchor, I will be your helicopter and take you out of the difficult situation in the storm and put you somewhere else. I would love to hear that. But it's not the promise. The promise is be the anchor in the middle of the storm. So, still there, firm, knowing that he is going to keep us safe.”

#DivineDirection

“Maybe what you need to pull out of your backpack at the moment is his direction. Maybe you've been trying to go your own direction for a while, and you've forgotten that actually God's already provided you direction. The pillar of cloud, pillar of fire is walking ahead of you. He's called the Holy Spirit. And all we need to do is submit our plans to him and say, Lord, not my will, but your will. And he will lead us step by step. Maybe through the roundabout way of the wilderness, but he will lead us the better way.”

#CommunityOnMission

“journey we take as we look at our spiritual geography can feel overwhelming at times. It can feel isolating. But because we know that God has designed, implemented, and desired for us to live life with others together in community on mission, walking side by side down the roads and the paths with others for seasons, for reasons, and for life. Let's not neglect who we do life with, but instead press in to support and to be supported by those who God has placed around us.”

#ValleysHaveAWayOut

“``Maybe you're in a valley, but valleys have a way in, and they also have a way out. And it's important not to rush to leave however much it hurts. We don't wanna miss what he's trying to tell us. Personally, during one of my valley experiences, God showed me that he was there through the littlest of things. A cancellation brought up an appointment really quickly, and then a text message came with just the right words at just the right time. And in one of my other valley experiences, God showed me what mattered and what just didn't. He offered his perspective because I was too low to see from mine.”

#TrustOverAnswers

“If God knows, then that's good enough for me. And I meant it. But I said it not because I was full of faith. I said it because I knew where the incessant questioning would lead me, and I knew that the insistent to insistence to know all the answers would lead me to bad places. I had been there, and I didn't want to go back there again.”

#FaithIsCyclical

“``But the thing about the journey is that you can't get that Google map out from a to b. It never works like that. It doesn't work like that, nor is it straight. I always thought that becoming a Christian would be like this. You know, I'm going from height to height, growth to growth, better to better. It's not. It's not like that. It's cyclic. It's backwards. It's forwards. You know, sometimes you feel as though, lord, I thought I was forgiven. I thought that had been dealt with, and the issue comes up again. Have you had those moments? time to go into, lord, what are you saying? Is there something deeper? I am forgiven, but are you saying something else? So we do come back, and we do need to identify name and find god again in that place. So that's the second thing.”

#GenerosityGrows

“``Generosity can grow into contentment. Being confident in God's sufficiency, knowing that his good boundaries and provisions are just right for you just like they were in the garden. Generosity grows into mercy when we see the values in others. This is Peter's story. He grew in mercy when the spirit opened his eyes to the value of all people and things when used for the good of how God wants us to use them. And generosity grows into freedom. Generosity and humility combat pride, that special wine of Satan. When we get out of the center of things and put Jesus in the center, we experience a new kind of freedom. So if the sun makes you free, you are free indeed. You have a house, no longer homeless, no longer a slave to a slave master, but a child of God.”

#LiveGodsGoodLife

“``And so I wonder how many times in my life I have helped myself to the seed. I've eaten all the bread, and I've decided to go digging around for more consumed the seed that was meant for sowing as well. You see, if I can't afford to be generous, then it's often a sign that I've been living the world's idea of a good life and not God's idea of a good life. And, actually, that's exact the last thing that he wants is for us to live the good life because that's the life that Jesus came to give us.”

#ReadyToShare

“``For instance, are you ready to share? If someone was to come up to you after this service this morning and and really need help, are you ready? Would you be ready? It's a challenge, isn't it? It's a really big challenge for many of us. But Paul says that by doing this, we will be storing up for them ourselves, themselves, the treasure of a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of the life that really is life. Every moment of generosity takes our behavior a little bit closer to our belief, to the life that really is life, to the abundant life that Jesus came to give us, to the good life.”

#GodLovesEqually

“And here's the next thing. There's no degree in god's love. God loves you and me, the beggar, the homeless, the illegal immigrant, the victim of war as much as he loves Jesus. God the father loves you as much as god the father loves Jesus. You believe that? Because God's love has no degree. He either loves or he doesn't, and he's love. That's who he is. That's his nature. That's his meaning. That's his being. This is our god, and he loves you and draws you into that Trinitarian concept of god, god loving the son, the son loving the father, the father loving the spirit, the spirit loving the son, this whole energy and vitality and power of love.”

#LeadByExample

“actively pursue Jesus in your life, and you will immediately be set apart far beyond what you could ever do with wise words or with anything else. If you actively pursue Jesus in your life, you will be set apart. No doubt in my mind, and I dare you to try it. That means you don't conform to the what other people do that you know is wrong. It means you have conviction, and you decide who you wanna be. That's a hard road, though. It's a hard road.”

#CommunityHeals

“An ironic twist of life is that we are usually hurt by community, but it is only in community that we find healing. Some of life's greatest hurts come out of relationships with others, and yet the greatest healing happens in community as well. James talks about healing in the context of community. He says, are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise them up, and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.”

#GraceBridges

“``Jesus Christ died and took away our sin. He took away any fears or anything that is a blockage for us. These insecurities we now face in our life towards community and towards God and even within ourself are now no longer to be used as blockages, but rather to be used as the bridges to help strengthen towards one another. God's grace, his holy spirit have come to fill us, to do supernatural works within us for the sake of the body, not for our own sake, but for God's.”

#StepBeyondFear

“But something greater than their fears passed through the locked doors. A living savior promising the hope and the future. And it so moved them that they were willing to step beyond their fears to begin to share the invitation. It makes me wonder, what would it take in our churches across Australia to move beyond our fears, to begin to share good news? What would it take that we would pray, invite, and bring people knowing it's not about me, not about us, but an invitation that we've received and we get to share as we keep in step with the spirit who is opening the harvest season right now.”

#RenewYourMind

“It seems so easy, doesn't it, to be able to ride a bike that just works the opposite way. Left is right, and right is left. Being able to function and do well in community is a little bit like this because it's so opposite to how our world works. Paul had something to say about this. He said this, don't become so well adjusted to your culture, steering left, that you fit in without even thinking. Instead, steer right, fix your attention on God, and you'll be changed from the inside out. You might know this as do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

#WeddingMiracle

“And what did they notice? That as Jesus reveals his glory, it's a miracle of blessing that is abundant beyond what anyone would expect. It's a miracle of transformation where Jesus takes something so ordinary and makes it extraordinary. And don't miss this. Jesus announcing his ministry, which is saying the kingdom has come near. Where is he doing that? At a wedding where people covenant love to one another. How beautiful.”

#BeTheGoodSamaritan

“``And Jesus becomes that true Samaritan, that he comes to us and helps us when we can't help ourselves. He binds our wounds. He carries our burdens. He pays our debt. He loves us when we're helpless. And then he says, go and do likewise. Not to earn love, but to give love to others because we've received love. You see, this lawyer, this religious leader, he wanted theological clarity. Jesus gave him a life assignment.”

#EncounterHolySpirit

“Maybe you've never heard of the Holy Spirit before. And as we read in Acts earlier, people said, what must we do? We heard this wind, we see this fire, and we've heard this other language of our own. What do we do now? And what did Peter said? He said, repent, which means turn away from what you've been choosing and turn toward what God wants for you. And he said, be baptized, and he said, be filled with the Holy Spirit that you may know who he is. This morning, that's an opportunity that's available to you and online. If you've never met this Jesus and never experienced the Holy Spirit as comforter, as equipper for you, you can do that now.”

#ComeAndSeeJesus

“Come and see this man who told me everything that I had done, and they did. They invited people to be directed towards Jesus, and they become kingdom outposts because of it. We think evangelism is using the right words at the right time and that the person would then use the right words back, and ta da, we're successful. But we are forgetting the word, Jesus. Everyone can share the good news because our everyday ordinary life with Jesus is good news.”

#LimitationsAreDoorways

“And that is the lie that was spoken at the beginning of time that we could be limitless. What if, as Jodi posed, our limitations are the doorways through which we can meet God and each other? We can step through the doorway Jesus has made for us and be restored to our image bearing motherhood in communion. Women collectively expressing the nurturing love of God, his compassion, and his creativity, his generous hospitality, and a harmonious peace to the world.”

#UnqualifiedButFaithful

“``Gladys was completely unqualified, but Gladys lived like Jesus. And her missionary service was marked by a humble but determined desire to live like Jesus and do what he told her to do. Along the way, she told stories about him from the bible. She was called the virtuous one by the local people in her community in China. Gladys certainly lived like Jesus. God uses ordinary people who live like Jesus and allow Jesus to live through them by the spirit.”

#LiveYourStory

“You might be here today and you're already a follower of Jesus, but this is your story too because you were once at the gate and Jesus met you there in the place of your limitations, and you've experienced his transforming grace in your life, and you have a story to tell. It might not look like either of these stories that we've talked about today, but it's no less powerful. So the question for you is not do I have a story, but the question is are you living like it's true?”

#BeAWitness

“Wherever ordinary Jesus loving people are, kingdom outposts are established. Today, Jesus will build his church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. So let's just take a few moments. I'm gonna ask a question. Sit comfortably. Ponder this. What have I witnessed that enables me to be a witness bearer? Have I seen, tasted, experienced, heard? If so, I am a witness bearer. Who was a witness near me? Who witnessed to me? Who continues to witness to me? What hinders me from being a witness bearer? Remember, we can only bear true witness to what we have personally seen, heard, and experienced. Amen.”

#CostOfDiscipleship

“Being a sheep of Jesus is not easy. It's not cheap. In yet another great paradox, it costs us nothing and everything at the same time. There is nothing that we can do to earn Jesus' shepherdship on our lives. He has done that already. And yet, he asks us to give up everything in response. But in giving up everything, we gain even more in another paradox. And, of course, it's not just all about us all the time, is it?”

#HumbledThenExalted

“What is your response? To this one who humbled himself and through his humbling was rewarded with with complete humiliation. He humbled himself, and the world humiliated him. God raised him up where he is enthroned. This is your God. This is your Lord. What will you do with him?”

#LambOfGodMoment

“There was something about to happen, and John had the privilege of witnessing the person that would become the means by which we could live with God once and for all. And we read these words in the first chapter of of John when Jesus John looked up and he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, look, The lamb of god who takes the sin of the world. Wow. What a moment. The declaration this declaration set in motion Jesus' ministry.”

#RepentanceNotShame

“Janine Antoni filled her space with dark ink coating the floor in a narrative of shame. The sinful woman used her hair to dry her own tears away from Jesus' feet. Repentance is not the same as shame. Shame says, try harder, but repentance means freedom. If we're struggling to love the people around us, the answer isn't just trying harder. If trying harder was the measure the Pharisees were doing well. But repentance is about going back to him and starting again by loving him.”

#CelebrateLostFound

“The reality of home had moved. Rules and position and being correct had replaced a feeling of appreciating the presence and love of the father. A move from the father's priorities to the older brother's priorities. And the father so beautifully and gently reminded him, my son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.”

#InnerConversation

“The text says that he came to his senses. Let's read what the text says here. When he came to his senses, I love this, one of the first journeys back to doing the right thing is having a good chat to yourself. Some people say it's the first sign of insanity. It's actually the first sign of sanity is to chat to yourself, talk to yourself, have this inner conversation.”

#SlowRestoration

“Across the pages of those journals that span twenty five years of my life, I saw how god had been at work gradually revealing himself to me, steadfastly answering deep prayers in unexpected and profound ways. And I realized that my perspective of the bible has been skewed by the time in which it takes me to read through those passages, sometimes twenty to thirty minutes, but that's actually fifty to sixty years of living. Sometimes it's centuries. And reading my life of twenty five years just in a shorter period of time gave me a really different view. God's work of restoration is as slow and painstaking as it is intricate, perfect, and individual.”

#BecomeLikeJesus

“But the fullest expression of God's kingdom has not been realized yet. And so on this side of eternity, pain and suffering and discomfort are still inevitable. And if all we do is try to avoid them, we miss out on the opportunities they present us to become more like Jesus. A man who is described by the prophet Isaiah as a man of suffering, familiar with pain. To become more like Jesus is actually to become more familiar with pain. Sounds attractive, doesn't it? Not to try and avoid it at all costs. It is to face pain head on and allow it to shape us and to make us more like Jesus.”

#LivesAsLetters

“Mission isn't what we do, Martha in the kitchen. Mission is who we become, Mary at the feet of Jesus. Paul says to the Corinthians, the only letter of recommendation we need is you, yourselves. Your lives are a letter written on our hearts. Everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This letter is not written with pen and ink, but with the spirit of the living God.”

#CrossGenAdoption

“What if in the next three years, cross generational adoption was the norm. Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, and he says, God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. Sometimes, I think, even though we can remember that we are adopted by God through Jesus as sons and daughters, we can forget that that makes us adopted brothers and sisters.”

#ListenAndObey

“These movements of Jesus' followers who said, yes, I will listen and obey are the reason that you're sitting here today as a follower of Jesus. Followers of Jesus who listen. Jesus said in John ten twenty seven, my sheep listen to my voice, the voice of the good shepherd. I know them and they follow me. Generations upon generations upon generations of disciples have listened and obeyed just as Jesus commissioned them to do in Matthew 28.”

#SlowGentleTransformation

“``How does he make this change within me? Well, the same way he does in most things, slowly and gently. The Holy Spirit doesn't force, doesn't barge in. He uses his word that reveals Christ to us to show me who Christ is and what his kingdom looks and sounds like. He uses wise people in my life to remind me who Christ is and what his kingdom looks and sounds like.”

#DeepRootsDeepTalks

“``We need to be having these hard conversations with God, allowing God to be prompting us and engaging with him. He will find us, and he will share these moments with us. He will bring us back. Jesus is faithful to heal and forgive and save again. And this isn't just for ourselves. This isn't just so that we feel nice, but because this message is not just about hard conversations, but it's one of selfishness versus humility, one of isolation versus community, one of connection versus loneliness.”

#BlessedInTheDetour

“And here's the truth. God bless you in the detour. Because the detour are circumstances. Right? But god can bless you in the detour independently of the circumstances where you are. Because it's what's happened with with with Joseph. And doesn't bless only you, also your household household, your work, your company, the place that you are planted. So someone that have gas difficult circumstances It's the circumstances are complicated, but doesn't mean that God is gone or disappear. Even when the plan seems gone, even when the roads feel blocked, the blessing of God still flows.”

#ImNotOkay

“``But the thing that I really came back to, to get me out of my thing of what I was stuck in, was talking to Jesus and talking to him honestly, but then talking to other people about how I was talking honestly to God and asking them, hey. What do you think? Hey. Can you pray for me? I'm not okay. And admitting that I wasn't okay, I had grown up, right, as a Christian, grown up going to church, grown up as a good girl, and I wasn't okay. That was scary, really scary to admit, to be like, I need help, and I had to ask for it. And I had to be willing to hear them.”

#ExodusIdentity

“So you know the backstory, the exodus out of slavery through the wilderness into the promised land. We are part of that story. The exodus, a one time event of rescue and salvation. The wilderness, a time to establish identity and community, a time to get to know God, to live in obedience, a time for them to get Egypt and slavery out of their system and to become children of God. Moving from being a slave to a people of God. Moving towards the promised land, a journey beyond the wilderness and the destiny that's promised.”

#FreedomInChrist

“And I wonder if that isn't a bit like us. Just like the Israelites, those of us who have accepted what Jesus has done in our lives and asked him to rule our lives have been freed from slavery, slavery to sin, slavery to the the consequences of sin, the eternal consequences of separation from God. We've been freed from that. We're no longer held captive by our own desires or our own faults, our own mistakes, our circumstances, or actually anything else in our lives or this world. We still experience most of these things, but we are not ruled by them. We are ruled by Jesus.”

#MercyLikeTheFather

“Micah knows that God is a just God. Micah knows this. Micah knows that he is all forgiving, that he is full of mercy, that he is full of grace, much like the father. Right? In fact, like the father that we read in in Luke 15, if you wanna read that, that the father didn't say to the boy, hey, look, where'd it get you? Yeah. Good on you. Yeah. I knew that was gonna happen. He just received him.”

#JesusByExample

“``And we also get clues about Jesus by how he lived. He showed us what it meant to be humble, what it meant to put others first, to be inclusive and inviting, to be hospitable, to forgive and to be generous, right? So if the picture on the puzzle box is the birth of Jesus, the actual puzzle that gets made is the Easter story. And that doesn't happen until April, so we'll have to come back then. No, just kidding. The picture on the box is Jesus who died and rose again for us. That's the next step.”

#LiveJusticeAndKindness

“``But we know what God requires of us what he desires for us his children is to do justice to love kindness to walk humbly with our God God wants us to live with compassion and humility and justice in his love to be just like our father we need we are no longer needing to live by our own means in our own ways or following our own desires because God himself has paid the cost of where this will lead to and has given us the good life in return.”

#JoyAsFuel

“``Jesus used the joy set before him as fuel to do the most impossible hard thing, and we can too. We all have difficulties. There will always be difficulties, but joy can be experienced in and through it when we are centered in God's will.”

#MosesGlow

“There's a moment in Exodus 34 where Moses has been in God's presence for so long receiving the Ten Commandments that it says that his skin on his face literally glows. Think about that for a moment. He has been in the presence of God's glory for so long that his skin is glowing. And the Israelites are freaked out. They have to find something to cover Moses' face. Because it's a bit kind of weird and scary, right? And so that whenever he comes out of God's presence to talk with them, they can kind of deal with it, cope with it.”

#TransformationRequiresSacrifice

“Yes, Jesus coming into your life, into our life, might bring transformation. This man from crazy demon-possessed to being perfectly sane and well. But the price, the loss of income, what else would Jesus cause us to lose? What else would he overturn in our lives? No, thank you. We like our lives the way they are. Even though there is kind of like a crazy demon-possessed man over there. It's not very good. It's okay. We can put up with bad things. We like things to stay this way. It is scary and unpredictable when heaven invades earth, when God intrudes into our ordinary.”

#JesusCleansesTemple

“Peace is more than the absence of conflict. It's about wholeness, completeness, things and relationships being restored. The most important relationship that we can have is our relationship with God. And sometimes in our striving for that, there is conflict. In this passage, Jesus is not condoning violence. That's not what he's doing here. Instead, he is saying that in your quest, you must put God first. And in doing that, you might shake things up a bit. In the process of peacemaking, things are exposed that may need to be talked about.”