Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, “You must be born again.” The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’
- John 3:5-8

When people hear the words “born again,” a lot of us think of that as something for other Christians. Maybe for the ones who’ve really messed up—people with addiction stories, people who hit rock bottom, and then found got religion. But if we actually look at John 3, the very first person Jesus says “you must be born again” to is Nicodemus.

Now Nicodemus isn’t a failure. He’s not on the margins. He’s a respected leader, a teacher of Israel, educated, stable, religious, moral. In other words, if anyone didn’t need to start over, it would have been him. And yet Jesus looks him in the eye and says: “Amen, amen… no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.”

That’s what baptism is all about. Not just a symbol, not just a ritual. It’s death and resurrection. It’s saying: the old life is gone, and a whole new life begins. When we watched Dami, Ren, Abraham, Solomon and Jennifer go down into the water at their baptisms, that wasn’t just a nice ceremony. That was them dying with Christ and being raised into new life.

The image is shocking—because it is meant to be. Think of that Mission Impossible moment when Ethan Hunt has a bomb in his head, and the only way to save him is for his wife to stop his heart and shock him back to life. It looks like death, but it’s the only way to live. That’s baptism. The only way to live is to die.

Why does Jesus make it so drastic? Because small tweaks won’t cut it. You can’t just polish up your life and hope it’s enough. An apple tree can’t grow oranges no matter how much you prune or fertilise it. To bear different fruit, you need a new root. That’s why Jesus says, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”

Here’s the best part: you don’t make yourself born again. Babies don’t give birth to themselves! Birth is the work of another. And in our case, it’s the work of Christ—lifted up on the cross, suffering so that we could have life.

So whether you’ve been in church for decades or you’re just exploring faith, the call of Jesus is the same: you must be born again. Not just reformed, not just improved—renewed.

Idols bring death but Jesus brings life.

Jesus’s invitation to follow him,
Is an invitation to put our faith in him.
To put our faith in the fact that
He entered into our humanity with us,
went into death for us
And that if we want believe that and accept that invitation
the same power that rose Jesus from the dead.
The power of the holy spirit is at work in us
As a deposit of what is now our inheritance
The inheritance that one day we will fully be like Jesus,
we too will pass through death into new life.
And that each day we can walk the beautiful way.
Becoming more fully human.
A person who is being transformed and renewed
Into someone who can truly love God and love others.

Jesus’s invitation
Is an invitation to be set free from the lies of false gods
that promise us freedom and security
but enslave and destroy us.

Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, ‘This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.’
- Exodus 19:3-6

Last Sunday we started a series on the Ten Commandments - or, to be more precise - what the Bible calls the Ten Words. But before diving in, we need to get something straight.

When most people think of Christianity, they imagine rules: a moral code, a list of dos and don’ts, a cosmic scorecard. Be good, and you go to heaven. Slip up, and you’re out. But Exodus 20 – the famous “Ten Commandments” – tells a very different story.

Before Israel ever received the commandments, God rescued them: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Ex. 20:2). Salvation was not earned by good behaviour, by either ritual practice or moral practice. God carried them “on eagles’ wings” before they knew the law.

In other words, grace comes first.

And the opposite of grace is not judgment but transaction – the assumption that a covenant is the same as some trade. In a teaching about the Law, Jesus tells the Rich Young Man to give up his bargaining power (whether his money, or his behaviour - "what must I do to enter eternal life") and follow him empty-handed. It comes right after Jesus' encounter with children, where we learn that faith like theirs is required to enter the kingdom; they don't tend to come with wealth, or status, to trade on. They can only trust.

So why commandments at all? They are not conditions of God’s love but invitations to live out a calling. Israel was chosen to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). Their obedience was meant to reveal God’s character to the world: they should be a people of peace in a violent culture, a people who rest in a world of endless striving, a people marked by gratitude instead of envy.

When Israel failed, it wasn’t about breaking arbitrary rules but about failing their vocation. That same calling continues in Christ. Jesus fulfils Israel’s role, becoming the true priest and mediator, and now the church is described as “a royal priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:9). The Ten Words, then, are not a cold checklist. They are a vision of flourishing – boundaries that make us more human, not less – lived out as a response to grace and as a witness to God’s goodness in a broken world.

Are there times when you’re seeking to enter a transaction with God - trying to earn His love or blessing - instead of resting in His grace and living out of your identity as His beloved child? Take a while to ask what Jesus is asking you to put down, so that you can be ready to hear what you should take up.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Ephesians 4:1-6

Paul encourages the church in Ephesus to “live a life worthy of the calling” they’ve received. His worry is that they might exist in a state of spiritual immaturity—muddling around in the gap between the extraordinary new life offered in Christ and the way they had lived in their own past.

What’s striking is that Paul doesn’t start by urging us toward more religious effort or personal achievement, or offer models of great spiritual and moral achievement. Instead, he calls for humility, gentleness, patience, and love. In other words, spiritual maturity is deeply tied to how we treat one another within the Christian community.

Paul emphasises that we are one body, united by one Spirit, one hope, one Lord. This unity is the foundation of the church. And yet, within that unity, there is beautiful diversity: Christ has given different people different gifts—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers—not for their personal elevation, but to equip the church for service and to help it grow in maturity.

The mature church is not just a place where consumer needs are met or sermons are impressive, but where each member plays their part in love and truth. Spiritual growth happens in the context of community—not an idealised version of it, but the real, sometimes difficult, community that God has placed us in.

So the invitation is this: what does your “yes” to the church look like right now? Perhaps it’s showing up consistently, praying with others, serving, or giving. To discern where your gifts might meet the church’s needs. Look outward to what moves you, inward to what you’re good at, and upward to what others affirm in you (if you want to dig deeper, have a look at this article from Tim Keller).

The church needs what God has placed in you—so take your next step, offer what you have, and watch what God builds through it.

"For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come."
Ephesians 1:15–21

"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
Ephesians 3:14–19

Paul doesn’t pray for quick fixes. He prays that we would see. That the Spirit would open the eyes of our hearts to grasp the hope, power, and love already ours in Christ. His prayers are not transactional (pray and receive), but transformational: shaping how we see God, ourselves, and the world.

This kind of prayer matters most when we’re waiting. When we’re crying out for loved ones to meet Jesus. When we’re facing silence and uncertainty. Perhaps we're burdened for our family, what it means for them not to know Christ yet, and how hard that silence can be. But Paul reminds us: God is at work even when we can’t see it.

This week, let us reflect on where God might be transforming us. Has someone said, “You seem more peaceful lately”? That might be the Spirit at work. Let’s keep praying for deeper roots in love.

You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
- Ephesians 2:19-22

It would be hard to overstate the significance of the Jerusalem’s temple in the mind and life of a first century Israelite like Paul.

The gospel authors record the awe Jesus’s disciples felt when they encountered the temple. But even more impressive that the great architecture was that in Paul and the Apostles' thinking, the Temple was the centre of the cosmos.

It was THE place that heaven and Earth overlapped; the hotspot of God’s presence.

But Jesus saw the corruption of Israel's leadership behind those massive stones and the magnificent buildings. The week before he was arrested Jesus went into Jerusalem, right into the Temple courts, and openly accused the priests and the leaders of Israel of corruption.

Messing with the temple system is dangerous business.

At Jesus' trial one of the false accusations used against him was that he claimed he would destroy the physical Temple and rebuild it in three days.

But Jesus’s claim was that he was the new Temple. In him, God’s presence and rule had come into the world in a new way. Now, Jesus is the place where Heaven and Earth overlap - not the physical Temple building. Jesus was referring to his own body, that would be destroyed and rebuilt in three days when he rose to new life.

After his death and resurrection, Jesus said that God’s presence would come and live in and among his followers. That they would become communities of people where God rests and rules. They would be temples!

And through these communities - these living temples - God’s presence, rest and rule, God’s dwelling with his people, was to fill the whole world. All because of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection.

We, Trinity Vineyard Church, are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Sometimes it's hardly noticeable. Sometimes work seems to leap forward massively in only a few days. But whether we notice it or not, IT IS happening.

Come Holy Spirit of the Living God. We continue to ask to receive Your presence. Build us, your living temple, into a unified space, hosting your presence.

"In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets".
Ephesians 3: 4-5

We’ve titled our new sermon series 'Receive the Holy Spirit' for two reasons. First, because the ability to understand what Paul means when he talks about his new insight requires the gift of the Spirit. Second, because living in response to that reality also takes the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This insight, this new view of reality, is NOT one Paul reached on his own just by being smart. It is NOT a view of reality that is only available to a few with money and influence. It is an insight into the identity of Christ Jesus and it has been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.

Paul wants to share his new view of reality with the Ephesians and with us today as we 'read their mail', but, it can only truly be revealed to us by the Spirit of God.

To have the identity of Jesus revealed to you is a sign that the Spirit of God has descended upon you and has begun work on your imagination. The Spirit has begun to shift your view of reality.

It is that same Holy Spirit who with God the father announced Jesus’s identity, who Paul says is at work revealing Christ to him as an apostle.

And the personal presence of God, His Spirit, is here today.

Still hovering in dark places. Hovering over our imaginations.

Revealing who Jesus is.

Pointing us to the crucified and risen Jesus.

Transforming us and empowering us so we can love God and others.

"Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?"
Jonah 9:11

Many of us didn’t plan to settle in Woolwich — I certainly didn’t. Yet here we are, called to more than just survive. It’s easy to despair when faced with violence, addiction, and poverty in our city. The temptation is to retreat into safe Christian circles. But Jesus calls us to engage, not escape.

God loves this city, just as He loved Nineveh (Jonah 4:11) and instructed the exiled Israelites to seek the peace and prosperity of Babylon (Jeremiah 29:4-7). We are called to do the same in Woolwich.

Rather than consume the city’s resources or critique it from afar, we must ask: How can I bring life here? Jesus says we are the salt and light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16). Salt preserves and flavours; light reveals and transforms. Our presence and actions should make a tangible difference.

Examples like the Mizens — who responded to their son’s murder with forgiveness and hope — remind us that faith empowers us to bring good out of bad.

Let’s pray, participate, and love our city. Whether through serving, building relationships, or simple daily actions, we are sent here for a purpose. God has entrusted this space to us. Let’s shine brightly.