Sermons
Coronavirus update
While we are unable to meet in person, Rugby Baptist Church's services have gone online. You can find the sermons below, but please see our Video page for a fuller experience. We hope they will bless you, and God be with you in this season.
Sermon archive
| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| Perspective in prayer (John 8:34‒47) | Peter den Haan | 6th October 2019 | 21,175 Kb |
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| Lstening to God. 'On earth as it is in heaven.' The prayer of shutting up: we listen for the words of God, for the voice of the Shepherd (John 10:4). How do we listen? How do we recognise God's voice? In what ways does he speak? This may be an opportunity to touch on the prophetic side of prayer. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| Justification (Romans 3:9‒26) | Inger den Haan | 29th September 2019 | 11,122 Kb |
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| The early church took a while to come to grips with what precisely had just happened in 33AD; the apostle Paul provides a magisterial early exposition of it. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| Perseverance in prayer (Mark 14:32‒42) | Peter den Haan | 29th September 2019 | 20,877 Kb |
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| Processing disappointment. 'Your will be done.' When we pray, we have to embrace the mystery. The Bible is honest about unanswered prayer, and so must we be. Not every prayer gets answered the way we ask it. What do we do when God appears absent? | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| Resurrection (Romans 1:1-7, Ezekiel 37:1-14) | Marcia Williams | 22nd September 2019 | 12,656 Kb |
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| Paul’s succinct confession of the resurrection is our starting point to reflect on the Father’s mighty “Yes” to the sacrifice of the Son. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| The least of these (Matthew 25:31-46) | Mell Keenan | 22nd September 2019 | 14,422 Kb |
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| Starting with Jesus' image of the sheep and the goats, we reflect on the BMS Harvest campaign (South Sudan conflict survivors) and our own responsibility to a world that is lost and hurting. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| Victory (John 19:16‒22, 28‒30) | Peter den Haan | 15th September 2019 | 14,259 Kb |
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| The cross: the ultimate defeat turned to the ultimate victory. It is finished . The long-awaited victory of God’s Anointed One has come to pass, even if it perhaps didn’t quite look the way we expected. Key themes are Redemption, Substitution, and Covenant. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| Prevailing in prayer (James 5:14‒16) | Abbie Crawford | 15th September 2019 | 23,722 Kb |
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| 'Your kingdom come... forgive us our sins.' The James passage encourages us to both extend and seek forgiveness, which is not just something we do with each other but explicitly in the presence of God (Romans 12:17‒19; cf. Deuteronomy 32:35). | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| Fulfilment (Mark 1:9‒15) | Peter den Haan | 8th September 2019 | 22,047 Kb |
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| The laws and prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures come to fulfilment at the start of Jesus’ ministry. Key themes are Kingdom, Covenant, and Redemption. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| Power of prayer (John 16:16‒24) | Peter den Haan | 8th September 2019 | 17,428 Kb |
| Description | |||
| We think about prayers of petition for ourselves. 'Give us this day our daily bread.' Putting our needs before God is part of prayer, but we cannot presume the answer (traffic light analogy: green, amber, red). In the prayer, in the answer, in the struggle, we are changed. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| New Creation (Isaiah 65:17-25) | David Higham | 1st September 2019 | 19,291 Kb |
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| Late Isaiah uses language that is picked up again in the book of Revelation. Key theme is New Creation: one day everything will be made new. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| Purpose in prayer (Luke 10:38-42) | Peter den Haan | 1st September 2019 | 20,562 Kb |
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| Adoration of God. 'Hallowed be your name'. Prayer starts in an attitude of recognition who God is and worship of him. It helps us to realise that he is central and we are not. The purpose of prayer then is not to treat God as a celestial supermarket to whom we submit our shopping lists, but as the infinitely good Person around whom we seek to order our lives, affections, and fruit. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| Overcoming by the Gospel (Romans 12:9‒21) | Peter den Haan | 25th August 2019 | 19,460 Kb |
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| Paul illustrates the transformed life (12:2) with love & service in the church (12:9‒13) and compassion & peace in the world (12:14‒21). Picking up from last week’s sermon, we will consider the implications for our life today. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| Transformed by the Gospel (Romans 12:1-8) | Peter den Haan | 18th August 2019 | 20,092 Kb |
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| There is no such thing as an unchanged Christian. With Paul, we reflect on our response to what God has done for us. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| The first place Jesus takes his disciples (John 2:1-11) | Alan Thomas | 11th August 2019 | 14,510 Kb |
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| Alan reflects with us on Jesus' first sign in the gospel of John, the turning of water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Enjoy the life that is given to you. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| What is love? (1 John 3:16-24) | Nancy Cervantes | 4th August 2019 | 15,338 Kb |
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| Nancy reflects on what we can learn from God about love. 'This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.' | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| All’s Well That Ends Well (Esther 6:14‒7:10) | Garry Bosworth | 28th July 2019 | 16,594 Kb |
| Description | |||
| And so the story unfolds to its logical end. Haman’s worship of power overwhelmed him; Esther’s acceptance of the possibility of death (4:16) allowed her to find strength in her weakness. We, too, are called to lose our life in order to find it. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| Resurrection (Ezekiel 37:1‒14) | Peter den Haan | 21st July 2019 | 13,047 Kb |
| Description | |||
| The famous vision of the valley of dry bones is not just about Israel, but also a sign of God’s power over death: as so often, the Hebrew scriptures offer a foretaste of what is to come. | |||
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| Title | Preacher | Date Recorded | File Size |
| The fate of injustice (Esther 5:9‒6:14) | Peter den Haan | 21st July 2019 | 19,622 Kb |
| Description | |||
| Haman plots for Mordecai’s downfall and his own exaltation—and the author of the book spells it out with glee, making sure that we, as readers, already spot how the tables will be turned. Justice is not always done as easily as this, of course, but our righteous God will see to it that, no matter how fallen our world, justice will emerge victorious in the end. | |||
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