Sunday Sermons and Bible Studies from different Churches around the world – Sunday March 2nd 2025

Sunday Sermons and Bible Studies from different Churches around the world – Sunday March 2nd 2025

Blog link https://www.otakada.org/sunday-sermons-and-bible-studies-from-different-churches-around-the-world-sunday-march-2nd-2025/

These are Sunday messages and Bible studies from different churches around the world + March 2nd, 2025

Something to NOTE

• Catholic:

  • Sacraments and Church teachings: Explaining the significance of sacraments like communion and baptism, and emphasizing the role of the Church as a guiding authority. 
  • Mary and the Saints: Devotion to Mary and other saints as intercessors, highlighting their lives as examples of Christian living. 
  • Social justice and charity: Integrating teachings on helping the poor and marginalized into the sermon message. 
• Baptist:

  • Believer’s baptism: Explaining the concept of adult baptism as a public declaration of personal faith. 
  • Congregational leadership: Highlighting the importance of active participation within the church community. 
  • Biblical authority: Emphasizing the Bible as the sole source of Christian truth. 
• Lutheran:

  • Grace through faith alone: Teaching that salvation is achieved solely through God’s grace and not by personal merit.
  • Two Kingdoms Doctrine: Understanding the separation between the secular and spiritual realms.
  • Liturgical tradition: Incorporating elements of the traditional church service, including hymns and prayers.

   

*MEN’S FELLOWSHIP LEARNING*
___________________________
*THEME:* The Full Armour of God
*TOPIC:* The Nature of Spiritual Warfate (Ephesians 6:10-18)
*FACILITATOR:* Raphael Awoseyin

*1) THERE IS A WAR:*
1.1) Putting our faith in Jesus Christ does not end end our struggles.
1.2) Apostle Peter warns that we are in a war, and that the enemy in this war is vicious.
1.3) It should not be a surprise that coming to Christ results in a war: that decision depletes the kingdom of Satan, and no king wants his empire to shrink.
1.4) Apostle Paul explains the nature of this war, its objective, and the provisions God has made for the Christian to be victorious.

*2) THE NATURE OF THE ENEMY:*
2.1) The enemy is Satan, and he is not visible with our natural eyes, but his instruments are visible and interact with us. These instruments may not necessarily mean ill for us.
2.2) Because the enemy is not visible with our natural eyes, physical weapons cannot be effective in fighting him.
2.3) We often think the instruments are the enemy. Because of this, we are tempted to fight the enemy with physical weapons.
2.4) The instrument may not know that he is an instrument, as Peter did not know he was being an instrument of the Devil when he was seeking to discourage Jesus from thinking of dying.
2.5) Our flesh can be an instrument of the Devil too.

*3) THE THEATRE OF WAR:*
3.1) All living beings have self-preservation instincts. We avoid things that can harm us physically.
3.2) While we do all we can to avoid bodily harm, the Bible teaches us that the greater danger to us is our heart.
3.3) Our deepest convictions and values reflect the state of our heart, and these are the targets of Satan as he wars against the Christian.
3.4) The Devil’s approach to tempting Eve was to work on her thinking – make her believe that God did not want the best for her.
3.5) He could use fellow human beings and physical situations to attack these our attributes, but his objective is our spirit.

*4) THE BATTLE FOR THE HEART:*
4.1) The Devil’s approach to tempting Eve was to work on her thinking – make her believe that God did not want the best for her.
4.2) Eve fell because she bought the Devil’s lie.
4.3) The Devil’s approach to tempting Job was to work to make him believe that God did not really care about him and didn’t mean well for him. (Job 1:6-12)
4.4) The Devil even used Job’s wife to try to make him believe the lie that God didn’t love him. (Job 2:9)

*5) GOD’S PROVISION:*
5.1) TRUTH as a belt
5.2) RIGHTEOUSNESS as breastplate
5.3) THE GOSPEL OF PEACE as shoes
5.4) FAITH as a shield
5.5) SALVATION as helmet
5.6) GOD’s WORD as sword
5.7) PRAYER to cap it all

*6) KEY LEARNING:*
6.1) Everyone who comes to and lives for Christ is in a spiritual war with Satan and will come under Satan’s attack. Satan’s objective in that war is to make the Christian doubt God’s goodness and sincerity.
6.2) Satan’s attacks often come by way of strategies, words and actions of other people; it is important for the Christian to see beyond these vessels of Satan’s attack and not approach the battle as purely physical.
6.3) The vessel Satan uses in his attacks could include those we respect – even for their spiritual standing, those close to us who have our best interests at heart. Our flesh can also be an instrument of attack by the enemy.
6.4) We complicate our lives and risk missing God’s perfect plan for us when we approach spiritual warfare with human weapons.
6.5) God has provided the full spiritual armour with which the Christian can resist Satan’s attacks and defeat him.
6.6) We are responsible for knowing and utilizing these weapons that God has provided. We fail in battle to the degree that we fail to utilize the weapons God has provided.
6.7) Learning to use the weapons God provided is a continuous exercise. The more we use the weapons, the better we get at using them.

VFC Mens Fellowship

POPE FRANCIS

ANGELUS

Sunday, 2 March 2025

[Multimedia]

_________________________

Text prepared by the Holy Father

Dear brothers and sisters,

In this Sunday’s Gospel (Lk 6:39-45), Jesus makes us reflect on two of the five senses: sight and taste.

With regard to sight, He asks us to train our eyes to observe the world well and to judge our neighbour with charity. He says: “Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye” (v. 42). Only with this gaze of care, not condemnation, can fraternal correction be a virtue. Because if it is not fraternal, it is not correction!

With regard to taste, Jesus reminds us that “every tree is known by its own fruit” (v. 44). And the fruits that come from man are, for example, his words, which ripen on his lips, since “for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (v. 45). Rotten fruits are violent, false, vulgar words; good ones are the just and honest words that give flavour to our dialogues.

And so we can ask ourselves: how do I look at other people, who are my brothers and sisters? And how do I feel looked at by others? Do my words have a good flavour, or are they imbued with bitterness and vanity?

Sisters and brothers, I am still sending you these thoughts from the hospital, where as you know I have been for several days, accompanied by doctors and healthcare professionals, whom I thank for the attention with which they are taking care of me. I feel in my heart the “blessing” that is hidden within frailty, because it is precisely in these moments that we learn even more to trust in the Lord; at the same time, I thank God for giving me the opportunity to share in body and spirit the condition of so many sick and suffering people.

I would like to thank you for the prayers, which rise up to the Lord from the hearts of so many faithful from many parts of the world: I feel all your affection and closeness and, at this particular time, I feel as if I am “carried” and supported by all God’s people. Thank you all!

I pray for you too. And I pray above all for peace. From here, war appears even more absurd. Let us pray for tormented Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan and Kivu.

Let us entrust ourselves confidently to Mary, our Mother. Happy Sunday, and arrivederci.

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2025/documents/20250302-angelus.html
[3/2, 8:39 PM] Amb. Oreojo Monday Ogbe – God’s Eagle Ministries: *Sermon by the Bishop of London at St Paul’s Cathedral*

Sermon by the Bishop of London at St Paul’s Cathedral

The Bishop of London with the new deacons (2)

Cathedrals are wonderful places and for those being ordained, St Pauls will remain for them a special place. Before I was a Bishop I was the Canon Treasurer at Salisbury Cathedral, which to those that knew me was a surprise. In Cathedrals you need to walk in straight lines and in the right place and with wonderful square corners, you have to sing the liturgy and to put all the words in the right order – this was not my background.

Early on I remember having got through a service as the Deacon. I felt very positive, I felt we had drawn people into worship, I had sung when required and I had got all the words in the right order and my square corners were wonderful.

So in the vestry I said so to the Canon Precentor – his response came “If you are a deacon you should look like one” pointing to my stole which had been priest-wise all the way through the service. My response was “once a deacon, always a deacon on the inside.” He responded back, “then look like one on the outside”. I love Tom dearly but you can imagine my response, however he does have a point.

Today we will hear “Deacons are to work with their fellow members in searching out the poor and weak, the sick and lonely and those who are oppressed and powerless, reaching into the forgotten corners of the world, so that the love of God may be made visible”.

Now if you are here today and you don’t know the love of God ask one of these people being ordained about it – having spent time with them I know they know of the love of God as seen in Christ Jesus.

And what of that love?

One of the challenges the early disciples had was that they expected Jesus to restore the fortunes of Israel to overthrow the Roman occupiers to restore them to their positions of power.

Jesus has in contrast began to teach about the lessons of the lilies of the field which neither toil or spin and calls them to seek the treasures in heaven and not on earth. He calls them to be salt and light in the world and to look after their enemy as they lie in the gutter, seeing them as their neighbour.

What the disciples and we so often miss was that the Kingdom that Jesus speaks about is not about his property or wealth or power. It is about love and it is about making God known and is love. It was and is about service.

And now in our gospel reading we are called to be ready dressed for action with our lamps burning – and how should we be dressed as ones who serve – as deacons.

Jesus says this about himself: “For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life/soul a ransom for the cause of many.”

Our epistle reading tells us that in our relationships with one another, to have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

We have been called to follow in Jesus’ footsteps – footsteps of service.

Today you are to be ordained as deacons you are going to have great fun in your parishes but ministry is not grand. Being a Christian, a disciple, is not grand, being a deacon is not grand you are to reach ‘into the forgotten corners of the world that the love of God may be made visible’. That is what ministry is about.

Reaching into the desolation of Grenfell tower, or the despair of prisons, or to reach into the darkness and loneliness of sickness, depression, unemployment and broken relationships. Reaching into the places and towards the people who fear that God is not for them, that forgiveness is not for them, that grace is too far away to reach.

To sit with the stranger, to touch the outcast, to welcome the refugee or to eat with the alien and risk being counted one of them. That is at the heart of the role of deacon and in doing this we follow the pattern of Jesus Christ. The model that Jesus gives us involves getting one’s own hands dirty and the risk of becoming a bit bruised.

It is traditional in some ordination services for the Bishop to take off their outer vestments, turn their stole deacon-wise put a towel around their waist and wash the ordinands’ feet. For a bishop doesn’t cease being a deacon either. When Jesus took up the towel and water it was at the moment of his greatest powerlessness; it was on the night on which he was betrayed that he washed the disciples’ feet – including those of Judas Iscariot. Jesus kneels before the feet of his betrayer and gently, tenderly washes them.

Christian service, the service into which these women and men are being ordained, should always follow this pattern, the pattern of the incarnation, the pattern of humility and vulnerability. Too often service from a position of strength and security becomes an exercise of power.

Pope Francis has said this about his vision for the Church – for the Roman Catholic Church, but it will do for us too: ‘I prefer a Church that is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. ’ (from Guadium Evangilii – The Joy of the Gospel)
It is easy to feed and to welcome and to sit with those who are like us but we are also called to sit and feed and to welcome those who we find it hard to love even our enemies.

Thomas Merton became a Cistercian monk because he wanted to escape from a world filled with wicked people. But after a few years of religious life, he went to the local town one day to have something printed, and the scales fell from his eyes. He wrote in his diary,

“Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts… the core of their being, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more greed.”

We know that you can’t bear the weight of this calling in your own strength, but only by the grace and power of God and with the cloud of witness which has gone before and with those gathered here this afternoon.

So pray therefore that your heart may daily be enlarged and your understanding of scripture Enlighted. Do pray earnestly for the gift of the Holy Spirit so that by the renewing of your minds you will discern what is the will of God to seek out the forgotten corners of the world and you will have the courage to echo the words of Isaiah and say, “Here I am send me”.

Today you will be ordained as deacons. Remember in the years that are to come that ‘once a Deacon, always a Deacon’ – not just on the inside but also the outside.

Amen.

Sermon Preached on the 30th June 2018
St Paul’s Cathedral for the ordination of Deacons

Isaiah 6: 1-8
Philippians 2: 5-11
Luke 12: 35-45

Mount Zion ministries

https://www.mtzionchurch.faith/

https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bishop-david-oyedepo-sermons–5561506
*David oyedepo messages*

https://faithtabernacle.org.ng/
Pastor Enoch Adeboye

https://flatimes.com/prayer-points-on-open-heavens-2-march-2025/

Message today Pastor Kumuyi

Deeper life church

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