Browns Bay Presbyterian Church Auckland, North Shore Presbyterian Church, Albany Church, Mairangi Bay Church, East Coast Bays Church, Torbay Church, Long Bay Church, Mainly Music, Mainly Music Browns Bay, Messy Church, Youth Group Browns Bay, Reformed Church Browns Bay.

Welcome to Browns Bay Presbyterian

We're glad you're here! We hope you will find all you need to know about Browns Bay Presbyterian.
      With Gods help we can get through this.

We are a community church comprised of people of all ages and various cultures. Our desire is to help people find and follow Jesus. This means we are discovering what it means to love God, love one another and love the community around about us.

You'll find more information about us from the links on the menu on the left.

From the Pastor’s pen:

Welcome to BBP Family Church’s weekly newsletter.
Prayer is available daily through the prayer chain and email list.

If you click on Readings and Vids for each week’s readings are in English or Korean/English parallel when you click on the Reference, Footnotes link.

06 April 2025

LIKE THE EARLY CHURCH - WE CAN MEET IN HOMES
I encourage you to join one. Speak to Dave, Val or Rob.

Welcome to BBP Family Church and our weekly newsletter.

COME ALIVE IN 2025 - GROWING IN PRAYER - JOIN US ON TUESDAY FOR WEEK 6
1 Why Pray?
2 Adoration
3 Petition
4 Intercession
5 Unanswered Prayer
6 Contemplation
7 Listening
8 Spiritual Warfare.

DINNER WITH JESUS IN BETHANY It’s at Bethany that John the Baptist is questioned about his identity by priests, Levites and Pharisees all sent by Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. John immediately makes it clear that he is not the Messiah. Neither is he Elijah nor the prophet (John 1:21). It is from Bethany that Jesus sends two disciples into Jerusalem to arrange for the transport for Palm Sunday. Most well known is the fact that Mary, Martha and Lazarus lived in Bethany. They’re a bit like Jesus’ extended family really. Putting the gospel reading today in context, in the previous chapter Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead. Consequently the leaders are planning to kill him (John 11:45-53) and if you read the next two verses in today’s reading, they also have plans to put Lazarus back into the tomb. In between these two passages about death we find a unique celebration of life in Mary’s sacrificial act.

And so we go to today’s short reading. The dinner is given in Jesus’ hon- our. Lazarus is reclining at the table (much like John the “disciple whom Jesus loved” does in the next chapter). Martha is serving - again! Mary is not just sitting at his feet like before. She is giving to Jesus, in enormous gratitude, an extravagant amount of perfume. In this act of devotion, Mary pours it on his feet, and wipes his feet with her hair.

Jesus will ride into Jerusalem as the anointed one, anointed not by a high priest on his head, but by a woman on his feet (the upside down Kingdom again). More than that, she does what Jesus has not yet instructed his disciples to do - wash one another’s feet as a sign of love for one another (see John 13:3-5). Perhaps Mary understood already that the stakes were high – she’d seen Lazarus dead and now alive. Jesus would die and rise again too.

Judas’ response is predictable. The last verse about us always having the poor with us is not an excuse to abandon the poor, but a picture of sacrificial love for the One who loved us first. It is inevitable that Christians, empowered by the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, would set the bar quite high for the Roman (pagan) world in their acts of love and compassion through those first few hundred years. Amazing grace, radical love, steady faith, unmovable hope, a whole new world and creation for those who trust Jesus (2 Cor 5:17), and extravagant generous reckless devotion, love, and sacrifice for the Saviour. What will you and I give?

Blessings and peace,

Robin

Recorded Services and Resources are here on our website.

On the menu on the left side of the screen you can click on
Readings & Vids to find each week's readings in English or Korean/English parallel. Previous services and readings are also found there. There are pages with each week’s newsletter, rosters and various other resources On the Browns Bay Presbyterian website. See https://bbpsermons.wordpress.com/ for written sermon texts.

  

‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory,
glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (1:14)

GREAT NEWS:- Messy Church

Messy Church has arrived! Come and Join us for Church with a Difference. First Friday of the Month! for information click here.

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recoded November 2019