St John’s Diamond Creek Talks

Do you feel guilty about buying things you don't need? Or about drinking too much on the weekend? Maybe sugar and chocolate is your guilty pleasure. What does the bible tell us about feelings of guilt? Julie continues our In the Valley series, looking at the feeling of guilt, and what Psalm 38 says about it.

The imagery of 'anger' is often fire - burning with anger, smouldering with anger, anger flaring up inside us. There's always a spark to it as well, something that sets us off. Do you get irritated, annoyed, or frustrated? Don't we all. Tim continues our In the Valley series with this look at Psalm 137, and the anger contained within.

There are many ways the Bible approaches the feeling of fear - too many to fit in one talk, in fact - whether it's a helpful caution or a reverent fear or an irrational anxiety.
This week, Kirk bring us one of these examples from the book of Psalms as well as a personal example from his own life as he explores how the love of Jesus fits into all this.

As the first of the year, this new series - In the Valley - focuses on various "negative" emotions we might face in life, and where we might find biblical examples of some of these feelings.
This week, Tim shines a light on grief and its relation to love, as well as a prominent example of grief from David in the book of Psalms.

This week in our Summer Stories series, Kirk brings us one of Jesus' many parables from the book of Matthew, in which he points out the hypocrisy of the religious elite and the importance of repentance.

This week, Jack Joynson debuts his first talk as he explores a story from the book of Acts and how we might relate in many different ways to some very different characters.

If you were the all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present creator of absolutely everything, and you wanted to reveal yourself to the human race, how would you do it? God chose to do it by becoming a human himself. Sending Jesus down to earth, to live and breath and one of us.
This Christmas, Kirk looks at how God speaks to us, initially through the prophets of the Old Testament in the Bible, then through Jesus. 

The Sunday before Christmas, Tim concludes our series O Come O Come Emmanuel. This talk looks at the verse of the carol calling Jesus "Rod of Jesse", as seen in the prophecy from Isaiah. Images of despair and destruction precede the passage read in this episode, a prophecy which ultimately came to pass in 722 BC, and in 587 BC, with foreign armies destroying Israel and capturing their people. 
But the beginning of this passage encourages Israel to look for a shoot coming from the stump of Jesse - a new king from the line of Jesse and of David. That King is who we celebrate at Christmas - and who we look forward to his coming again - Jesus.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheerOur spirits by Thine advent hereDisperse the gloomy clouds of nightAnd death's dark shadows put to flight.
The carol O Come O Come features names of Jesus from prophecies hundreds of years before his birth. This week, Delle looks at the verse and name - Dayspring.