Sermons

There is often a painful gap between what we promise God and what we actually do. We mean every word when we say it. We would die for him, we would never deny him, we would never be the one to let him down. And then the moment of testing arrives, and we discover how little our promises were worth.

Some prayers feel hopeless before they are even spoken. The need is too large, the situation too tangled, and our own track record too poor for us to expect much in return. We pray anyway, but we pray the way we drop a coin into a wishing well, without any real hope that anything will come of it.

It is a strange little episode, tucked into the middle of John’s Gospel and easy to read past. A handful of Greeks arrive in Jerusalem for the Passover, ask quietly for Philip, and make a single request: “Sir, we would like to see Jesus” (John 12:21). Jesus does not even meet them. The Greeks disappear from the narrative as suddenly as they arrived. And yet John records this moment with deliberate care, because what looks like a footnote turns out to be a hinge on which the whole story of redemption swings.

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, two women made their way through the darkened streets of Jerusalem toward a tomb. They carried spices and perfumes — the kind you bring for a corpse. They had no expectation of what they were about to find. And yet what happened next at that tomb would change the course of human history forever.

What would it be like to discover that you had done the unthinkable — destroyed the very thing you’d been hoping for your entire life?

What does it mean to be washed? It’s a question so basic that it seems almost too simple to ask — and yet its answer reaches into the deepest truths about who we are and what God has done for us. The ancient rite of baptism, practised by Christians for two thousand years, is far more than a ceremony. It is a vivid, unforgettable picture of two realities that every human being must face.

Try to picture this: a famous, outspoken atheist steps onto a stage, a room full of supporters waiting for him to dismantle Christianity—and his first words are, “Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Repent and trust Him.” The shock would be almost impossible to describe.

Acts 9 gives us one of the most famous conversions in history: Saul, the violent persecutor, meets Jesus on the road to Damascus and everything changes (Acts 9:1–9). But if you look closely, the story doesn’t end with Saul hitting the ground. It continues in the quiet faithfulness of a man most people overlook: Ananias.

Most of us like to imagine spiritual growth as a steady climb—small steps, a few breakthroughs, maybe a new habit or two. But every so often, God tells a different story. Not a “self-improvement” story, but a resurrection story. That’s what we see in Saul’s conversion on the Damascus road (Acts 9:1–19): a man moving full speed in the wrong direction, and Jesus stopping him with a mercy he didn’t ask for.

Most of us have people in our lives we’ve quietly written off. Maybe they’re openly hostile to faith, quick to mock Christianity, or just so hardened that you can’t imagine them ever changing. If that’s you, I want to sit with you for a moment in Acts 9—the conversion of Saul of Tarsus—because it’s one of the strongest “evidences” Christianity offers, and one of the most hopeful stories for anyone who wants to grow spiritually.

This sermon was preached at a special service in the life of Covenant Christian Fellowship, Galway: the ordination and installation of Eli Williamson as a ruling elder. We are thankful for how the Lord has been developing His work in Galway and for raising up a new elder to serve alongside the existing eldership. Two passages of Scripture were expounded: Ephesians 4:1–3 as the main sermon, and Haggai 2:1–5 as a charge to the new elder and to the congregation following the ordination.

The Curious Ways of God: When the Desert Is Actually the Path