Sunday Rewind - each week I share a sermon from the Battle Ready Sermons archive. My role has shifted to training the next generation of Salvation Army officers at William Booth College, so I'm no longer preaching every Sunday, but God's word doesn't go out of date. These messages are here to encourage, challenge, and point you to Jesus, whenever you need them.

This week's sermon was originally preached 28 September 2021.

Paul writes about rejoicing while living with hardship. In this Basingstoke Salvation Army sermon, Rob asks the difficult question honestly: what does joy look like when we are grieving, short of work or anxious about tomorrow? We look at prayer, peace, contentment and the strength Christ gives us in every season.

**Scripture:** Philippians 4:4–13, especially verses 4, 6–8 and 11–13 (NLT). “Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!” — [Philippians 4:4, NLT](https://www.bible.com/bible/116/PHP.4.4.NLT)

**Chapters**
00:00 Opening film: the joy of Salvation Army life
04:54 Why should Christians be joyful?
07:03 “Always” rejoice? Paul's challenging words
10:41 Joy when life is painful
12:00 The source of joy: a relationship with Christ
13:51 “Don't worry”: the harder command
16:42 Turning worry into prayer
17:59 Prayer, peace and the God who hears
19:05 Learning contentment in plenty and in need
20:17 Philippians 4:13 in its context
22:56 Where we look for happiness
24:18 Happy thoughts and where to set our minds
25:43 Philippians 4:8 and the focus of our thoughts
26:45 An invitation to respond
28:54 Sung prayer and reflection
31:39 This is not a “get a grip” message
32:42 Closing sung response

For five minutes with Scripture and prayer each day, watch Rob's [Faith in Five daily devotional playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRCAfiHehjUmYEPsOE8o4ZxH64ZFetd6n). Subscribe for daily devotionals and the weekly sermon.

What worry would you like to turn into an honest prayer today? You are welcome to share as much or as little as you wish in the comments.

#ChristianJoy #Philippians4 #PrayerForAnxiety #SalvationArmy

One line from this week’s sermon may need room than I could give it on video: “The Christian life isn’t meant to be hard work.”

Following Jesus is costly. Loving an enemy is hard. Forgiving someone who has hurt us is hard. Choosing honesty when dishonesty seems easier is hard. Serving when we are tired can be hard. Jesus never promised a life without sacrifice.

So what did I mean?

I was speaking about the exhausting kind of Christianity that turns grace into a checklist.

We can read the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 and turn them into targets. Be more humble. Be more merciful. Keep your heart pure. Make peace. Try harder. Do better. Then God will be pleased with you.

Before long, faith feels like an appraisal without end.

But Jesus begins somewhere else.

Sunday Rewind - each week I share a sermon from the Battle Ready Sermons archive. My role has shifted to training the next generation of Salvation Army officers at William Booth College, so I’m no longer preaching every Sunday, but God’s word doesn’t go out of date. These messages are here to encourage, challenge, and point you to Jesus, whenever you need them.

This week’s sermon was originally preached 14 September 2021.

The Beatitudes are not a ladder we climb so that God will bless us. They describe the life of people who live under God’s gracious rule. They show us what begins to grow when we trust Jesus rather than ourselves.

That changes discipleship.

I do not show mercy so that God might decide to love me. I can show mercy because I have received mercy.

I do not pursue peace to prove that I am worthy to be called God’s child. I make peace because I belong to him, and his life is taking shape in me.

I do not admit my need for God because spiritual poverty earns a reward. I can admit my need because there is no shame in depending on the One who loves me.

There is still effort in following Jesus. But it is response, not payment.

There is still discipline. But it grows from grace, not fear.

There is still change. But the Holy Spirit is at work within us. We are not trying to manufacture a Christian life by willpower.

Perhaps that is our heart-check for this week.

Are you following Jesus, or are you trying to impress him?

One path leaves us anxious, tired and wondering whether we have done enough. The other begins with grace.

Jesus is not waiting for you to complete the checklist.

Come to him. Trust him. Receive what he gives. Then let that grace shape how you live at home, at work, in your corps or church, and among people who need mercy and peace.

Grace comes first. Discipleship follows.

There is the vertical direction. Through Jesus, our broken relationship with God is restored.

Then there is the horizontal direction. Because of Christ, we can also seek reconciliation with one another.

Both are vital.

But Colossians 1 invites us to see something even larger.

Paul says that through Christ, God is reconciling everything to himself.

Not simply individuals.

Not simply churches.

Everything.

Jesus is not standing outside creation looking in. Paul says that everything was created through him and for him. Christ is at the centre of the world God made.

That makes Christian care for creation much more than an optional interest.

It becomes part of discipleship.

Sunday Rewind - each week I share a sermon from the Battle Ready Sermons archive. My role has shifted to training the next generation of Salvation Army officers at William Booth College, so I'm no longer preaching every Sunday, but God's word doesn't go out of date. These messages are here to encourage, challenge, and point you to Jesus, whenever you need them.

This week's sermon was originally preached 19 September 2021.

This can feel uncomfortable because environmental questions often become wrapped up in arguments, policies and competing opinions. But Christians do not need to begin there.

We begin with Jesus.

If Jesus loves what he has made, then those who follow him learn to love it too.

That may affect what we buy. What we throw away. What we repair. What we share. How much we consume. How grateful we are for things that cost nothing at all.

The sermon mentions reducing, reusing, repairing, borrowing, sharing and resisting the message that happiness always requires owning something new.

None of those actions will earn God’s favour.

They are responses to grace.

We care because God cares.

We protect because the world belongs to him.

We choose gratitude because creation is gift, not possession.

Perhaps the most helpful question, then, is not:

“Am I doing enough?”

It is:

“What would loving God’s world look like for me this week?”

Start small.

One purchase not made.

One item repaired.

One journey changed.

One moment spent noticing the beauty God has already given.

Christian stewardship begins when our love for Jesus starts shaping the ordinary choices of everyday life.

Watch the full sermon:

I said that Salvationists are sometimes tempted to reduce holiness down to a list of dos and don’ts. Negative holiness. We read the soldier’s covenant, tick off the things we have not done, and conclude that we must be fine.

I said it lightly. I should not have. Because I have done it for years.

Sunday Rewind - each week I share a sermon from the Battle Ready Sermons archive. My role has shifted to training the next generation of Salvation Army officers at William Booth College, so I'm no longer preaching every Sunday, but God's word doesn't go out of date. These messages are here to encourage, challenge, and point you to Jesus, whenever you need them.

This week's sermon was originally preached 22 August 2021.

Here is the trouble with negative holiness. It is measurable. You can audit it on a Sunday evening. I did not drink, I did not gamble, I did not lose my temper in the car park, so the week has gone well. It gives you a score. And a score feels like progress.

But John is not handing us a scorecard. Look again at what he actually writes: “For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions.” Every one of those three is about desire. Not behaviour. Desire.

You can go a whole month without doing a single thing on the list and still want the world with your whole chest.

That is the uncomfortable bit. A list of don’ts can be kept by willpower. Desire cannot. You do not talk yourself out of wanting something by trying harder not to want it. You are only ever moved off a craving by a stronger love.

Which is why John does not finish with a warning. He finishes with a promise: “But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.” He points at the thing that lasts, because he knows that seeing what lasts is the only cure for wanting what does not.

So here is the harder question I would put to you this week, and I am putting it to myself first.

Not, what did I avoid?

But, what did I actually want?

Sit down on Friday with a piece of paper and write down the three things you thought about most this week. Not the things you did. The things your mind drifted to when it was not being supervised. Your commute, your queue at the till, the ten minutes before you fell asleep.

That list is a truer picture of your heart than your behaviour is.

And then, gently, do not resolve to want less. Ask God to give you more of himself, until the wanting shifts. That is the work of a lifetime, and it is not done alone. It is done in the company of a few Christian friends who know you well enough to ask what you have been thinking about.

Find those friends. That was Sunday’s point, and it is still the point.

Which of the three did the paper reveal for you?

On this particular Sunday I told you that a small group will hold you accountable. I said it quickly and moved on. I want to slow down, because I don’t think I was honest enough about the cost.

Being known is lovely in theory. In practice it hurts.

Here is what I mean. Most of us have a Sunday self. It’s not a lie exactly. It’s just the tidied version. We arrive on time, we sing, we shake hands, we say we’re fine. And because a congregation is large, the tidied version is all anyone ever needs to see. You can carry a Sunday self for thirty years and nobody will ever ask a second question.

A small group takes that away from you. Not straight away. But somewhere around week nine, when your guard is down and you’re tired, the real thing slips out. The sharpness in your voice. The thing you keep going back to. The prayer you’ve stopped praying because you no longer believe God will answer it.

And there it sits, in someone’s front room, with the tea going cold.

That moment is the whole point. Peter writes, “Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.” Notice what love is covering. Not vague, tidy, general sin. A multitude. Yours. Specific, named, and now visible to people who will still be there next Tuesday.

We often read that verse as though love means politely looking away. I don’t think Peter meant that. Covering is not pretending. Covering is what happens when someone sees the worst of you and stays anyway. You cannot be covered by people who have never seen you.

So the accountability I mentioned on Sunday isn’t really a system. It isn’t a checklist or a rota. It’s the slow, uncomfortable, healing work of letting a few people watch you fail and keep loving you.

That’s why it grows holiness when a thousand sermons cannot. Sermons speak to the self you brought to church. Small groups meet the self you actually are.

My honest confession: I have preached this for weeks, and I still find it easier to lead a group than to be known in one. Pray for me on that, and I’ll pray for you.

Sunday Rewind - each week I share a sermon from the Battle Ready Sermons archive. My role has shifted to training the next generation of Salvation Army officers at William Booth College, so I’m no longer preaching every Sunday, but God’s word doesn’t go out of date. These messages are here to encourage, challenge, and point you to Jesus, whenever you need them.

This week’s sermon was originally preached 15 August 2021.

Find your few. Start this week.

With love, Rob

Scripture: New Living Translation (third edition).

About fifteen months before I preached this message, I wasn’t happy about giving up our Sunday evening meeting. I’d always seen that meeting as our holiness meeting, the one time each week we sat down and thought properly about what it means to live a holy life. Letting it go felt like letting go of something sacred.

I want to be honest with you about that resistance, because I think some of you have felt it too. Change in a corps rarely feels neutral. It touches memory, tradition and the people who taught you to love that particular meeting in the first place. Giving something like that up can feel like a small grief, even when you know, deep down, that something better might be coming.

God changed my mind over those months, and he changed it slowly, not with one dramatic moment but through watching what actually happens when six or eight people sit in someone’s front room with a cup of tea and an open Bible. I’ve watched people say things in a small group they would never say from a pew. I’ve watched holiness grow, not because we studied it harder, but because we were finally close enough to each other to be honest.

Sunday Rewind - each week I share a sermon from the Battle Ready Sermons archive. My role has shifted to training the next generation of Salvation Army officers at William Booth College, so I’m no longer preaching every Sunday, but God’s word doesn’t go out of date. These messages are here to encourage, challenge, and point you to Jesus, whenever you need them.

This week’s sermon was originally preached 1 August 2021.

That’s the pattern we see with Jesus and the twelve. He didn’t gather them into rows to teach a syllabus. He ate with them, walked with them and let them ask their half-formed questions over supper. Mark tells us the very first reason he called them was simply to accompany him. Everything else, the teaching, the sending out, the transformation, grew out of that closeness.

I still believe in gathering to worship together as a whole congregation. That won’t change. But I’ve come to see that holiness needs a smaller room too, one where there’s space to be known.

So here’s my honest question for you this week, the one I didn’t quite ask on Sunday: what would it cost you to let go of something familiar, if it meant growing closer to Jesus and to the people around you?

I’d love to hear your answer. Reply to this letter, or find me after the meeting.

Grace and peace.

Rob

This week, I have been sitting with a question. Why does loneliness hurt so much?

The answer, I think, starts right at the beginning of the Bible. In Genesis 1, God says, “let us make human beings in our image.” That little word “us” has puzzled scholars for centuries. Who was God talking to? The answer points us to something beautiful: God himself has never been alone. Father, Son, and Spirit have always existed in community, in relationship, in love. And because we are made in that image, we were built the same way. Connection is not a bonus extra to a good life. It is woven into who we are.

Key takeaway: loneliness is not a personal failure. It is a sign that something we were designed for is missing. The good news is that God invites us back into connection, first with him, and then with each other.

If you have felt that ache of loneliness lately, even surrounded by people, I would love for you to watch the full sermon. We talk about why a quick coffee after church is not enough, why the modern world quietly pulls us apart, and why something as simple as a small group might be the answer you have been looking for.

Sunday Rewind - each week I share a sermon from the Battle Ready Sermons archive. My role has shifted to training the next generation of Salvation Army officers at William Booth College, so I’m no longer preaching every Sunday, but God’s word doesn’t go out of date. These messages are here to encourage, challenge, and point you to Jesus, whenever you need them.

This week’s sermon was originally preached 18 July 2021.

Watch the full sermon here:

What is one small step you could take this week to connect with someone? I would love to hear from you in the comments.

“I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” - Philippians 4:13

But here’s the thing. When you read those words where Paul actually wrote them - from a Roman prison, after beatings, shipwrecks, hunger and years on the road - the verse takes on a completely different weight.

Sunday Rewind - each week I share a sermon from the Battle Ready Sermons archive. My role has shifted to training the next generation of Salvation Army officers at William Booth College, so I’m no longer preaching every Sunday, but God’s word doesn’t go out of date. These messages are here to encourage, challenge, and point you to Jesus, whenever you need them.

This week’s sermon was originally preached 11 July 2021.

In this week’s sermon, I unpacked what Philippians 4:13 really means when you read it in context. And I found something I honestly hadn’t spotted before: part of Paul’s extraordinary contentment wasn’t just his personal faith. It came through the church. Through real friendships. Through people who showed up for him in the middle of his hardest season.

Research tells us that deep, lasting friendships are one of the most important factors in our health and wellbeing. People who are socially disconnected are two to five times more likely to die from any cause than those with close ties to family and friends. The church, at its best, is exactly the kind of community that changes that.

Key takeaway: Contentment isn’t just a private spiritual achievement. It’s something God grows in us through each other.

▶ Watch the full sermon here -

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Hit reply and tell me: who has been Christ’s hands and feet for you this week?

Grace and peace.

Rob

Jesus says, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” But - if you’re honest - you know that’s not quite true. You can run the service. You can serve the meals, make the visits, sing the songs. Churches do it all the time without any real sense of Jesus being present in it.

That’s exactly the point Rob makes in this week’s sermon. We can do all the right things apart from Jesus. The question isn’t whether we’re doing them - it’s whether they’re bearing any lasting fruit.

Sunday Rewind - each week I share a sermon from the Battle Ready Sermons archive. My role has shifted to training the next generation of Salvation Army officers at William Booth College, so I’m no longer preaching every Sunday, but God’s word doesn’t go out of date. These messages are here to encourage, challenge, and point you to Jesus, whenever you need them.

This week’s sermon was originally preached 21 June 2021.

Remaining in Jesus, Rob suggests, isn’t about trying harder. It’s not about praying for longer or adding another meeting to the calendar. It’s about a relationship - spending time with a person, growing in love, letting that love spill outward into community and beyond.

And then there’s the moment that stops you in your tracks. A real-time search engine illustration shows what the world actually types when it thinks about Christians. Not “gracious.” Not “good neighbours.” Not “giving.”

It’s a wake-up call - and an invitation.

*Key takeaway:* Fruitfulness flows from connection, not activity. When we remain in Jesus - personally and together as a community - something changes. People notice love. And love draws people in.

*🎥 Watch the full sermon here:*

Draw me nearer. That’s the prayer.

This week’s sermon was originally preached 13 June 2021.

Dear friend.

Have you ever prayed and heard nothing back? Have you cried out to God in the middle of the night and been met with silence?

If you have, you are in very good company. The writer of Psalm 22 knows exactly how you feel. He starts with one of the rawest cries in all of Scripture - “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” - and if those words sound familiar, it is because Jesus used them too, from the cross at the lowest point of his earthly life.

Feeling abandoned by God is not a sign that your faith has failed. It is part of the honest human experience of following him.

But here is what I find so remarkable about this psalm. Right in the middle of the darkness, the psalmist chooses one small pivot. One word. Yet. He cannot feel God. He cannot hear God. And yet - he chooses to remember. He chooses to recall God’s faithfulness to those who went before him. And then he goes to his church family and gives his testimony.

Your testimony - your story of God’s faithfulness, however small - can give someone else the hope they need to keep going.

This week’s sermon explores Psalm 22 and asks: what do we do as God’s people when he feels absent? I think the answer will encourage you.

👇 Watch the full sermon here:

With you on the journey.

Rob

In Exodus 2, the people of Israel are in slavery. They’re groaning. They’re lamenting. And here’s what struck me this week: the passage doesn’t even say they were praying. It just says they cried out. No eloquent words. No tidy theology. Just raw, honest pain rising up from the dust.

And God heard them.

That’s the heart of this week’s sermon. Even when you haven’t got the strength to pray, even when your cry is just a groan into the air, God hears you. Not because you’ve earned it. Not because you’ve got the formula right. But because of who he is and the covenant he has made with you through Jesus.

Key takeaway: God’s love for you isn’t a contract you have to keep. It’s a covenant he will never break. If all you can do today is cry out, that’s enough. He’s already leaning in.

If you’re in a hard season right now, or you know someone who is, I’d love for you to watch the full sermon. Take 18 minutes. Bring your tea. And let this passage remind you that you are seen, heard, and remembered.

🎥 Watch the full message here:

Grace and peace.

Rob

This week I preached my final sermon at Maidenhead, and I turned to a passage that quietly took the weight off all of that. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul writes about who really makes things grow. He planted. Apollos watered. But the growth? That belonged to God all along.

I planted the seed in your hearts and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. (1 Corinthians 3:6)

That truth changes everything. It means you can stop striving. You can stop measuring your faith by numbers you can see. The growth that matters most is often quiet and unseen, happening in hearts and lives in ways no leader can manufacture.

Key takeaway: Your job isn’t to produce the growth. Your job is to stay rooted. Keep your roots deep in Jesus, keep showing up, and trust the one who gives the growth. He always has. He always will.

If you’re in a season of change right now, I think this message will meet you where you are.

👉 Watch the full sermon here:

And this week we begin a new seven-day series, When Everything Changes, on the channel and the Battle Drill app. I’d love you to walk through it with me.

Grace and peace.

Rob

In our Second Sunday Celebration this morning, we looked at Romans 6:12-23. Paul says that every day, we offer ourselves to something, whether we notice it or not. Our eyes, our hands, our mouth, and our legs are always serving someone.

We thought about the small choices that add up over time. A look that lingers too long. Hands that stay busy, but mostly for ourselves. Words we wish we could take back. Journeys we never quite make towards someone in need.

None of this is meant to leave you feeling worse about yourself. Quite the opposite.

Here is the key takeaway: Jesus did not come to help us try a bit harder. He came to set us free, completely, through his death and resurrection. Whatever your eyes have looked at, whatever your hands have done or not done, whatever your mouth has said, and wherever your legs have taken you, there is full and generous forgiveness. And there is a fresh start, today.

This week on the Battle Drill Daily Devotional, we are spending five minutes each morning going deeper into this, one part of the body at a time. I would love for you to join us.

You can watch the full message, Who Are You Living For?, here:

Wherever you are this week, you are not alone, and you are not stuck. There is grace for the past, and a new way forward, today.

When someone uses the word leader, does something in you step back?

Maybe you think of someone more confident. More polished. More obviously gifted. Maybe nobody has ever used that word about you, so you’ve never quite felt entitled to claim it.

This Sunday, I preached from Acts 2 on exactly that question - and Peter’s story changes everything.

Because Peter wasn’t polished. He was impulsive, loud, and prone to spectacular failure. He denied Jesus three times around a charcoal fire. He wept in the street. And yet - on the morning of Pentecost - the Holy Spirit stood him on his feet, and through one restored, Spirit-filled fisherman, a community of 3,000 people was born.

The question the sermon lands on is this: the Spirit who transformed Peter is the same Spirit living in every believer right now. Which means the real question isn’t “Am I the kind of person who could lead?” The question is “Am I willing to let the Spirit lead through me?”

Key takeaway: Your story - including the parts you’re most ashamed of - is not a liability in the hands of the Holy Spirit. It’s one of the most powerful tools of leadership you will ever have.

▶ Watch the full sermon here:

And if this speaks to you, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. What does leadership look like in your everyday frontline this week?

Grace to you.

Rob

Peter has denied Jesus three times. He’s gone back to fishing — probably because he doesn’t know what else to do when the thing you were meant to be has slipped through your fingers. And then Jesus appears on the beach. He lights a fire. He makes breakfast. And then, quietly, he asks a question.

Not: what on earth were you thinking? Not: let’s go through what happened, shall we?

Just: do you love me?

This Sunday at Maidenhead Salvation Army, we spent time in John 21:15-19 — the beach conversation that I think is one of the most tender, most precise, most hope-filled passages in all of Scripture.

We looked at how Peter’s wrong priorities led him to his famous failure, how Jesus’ response wasn’t a lecture but a restoration, and what it actually means to be forgiven and called in the same breath.

Key takeaway: Failure is never final with God. The same Jesus who restored Peter is asking you and me the same question today — not to examine the condition of your heart, but because he already knows the answer, and he wants to harness your love for something extraordinary.

🎬 Watch the full sermon here:

And starting tomorrow, the Battle Drill Daily Devotional channel will be spending seven days going much deeper into this beach scene — things like why Jesus lit a charcoal fire, why he asked the same question three times, and what it means to hear him say your name.

If you know someone who needs a bit of hope this week, please do share this with them. It costs nothing. It might mean more than you know.

Rob

Jesus turns to his disciples and asks, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” The crowd’s guesses come back: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah. Then he narrows it: “But who do you say I am?”

And Simon Peter - impulsive, inconsistent, not-yet-fully-formed Peter - answers with the most remarkable words in the Gospels. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

What happens next is what this sermon is really about.

Jesus doesn’t just say, “Well done, Peter.” He reveals Peter’s purpose. He hands him the keys of the kingdom of heaven - the same image the prophet Isaiah used for the faithful steward who opens and closes the royal court. Peter is given a calling in the very moment he recognises who Jesus really is.

And then Jesus keeps his word. At Pentecost, at Cornelius’s door, in Samaria - Peter opened the kingdom to thousands. Not because he was perfect. He denied Jesus three times. But because he was forgiven, and willing.

The key takeaway: Jesus doesn’t hand the keys to perfect people. He hands them to forgiven ones. And if you belong to him, you’re already holding a set. Your street. Your workplace. Your kitchen table. Those are the doors you’ve been called to open.

Watch the full sermon here:

Grace and peace.

Rob

And in those moments, the question often surfaces - not loudly, but honestly. Does God actually know I’m here?

This Sunday at Maidenhead Salvation Army, we sat with that question together. We started with a brilliantly daft argument about whether Australia exists (trust me, it makes sense in context), worked through the evidence for God that surrounds us every single day - and landed on one of the most personal promises Jesus ever made.

John 14:18. “When I go, you will not be left all alone. I will come back to you.”

No pressure. No performance. Just presence.

🔑 Key Takeaway

Wherever you are on the faith spectrum this week - wondering, watching, or walking closely with Jesus - that promise is for you. You are not alone. You have never been alone. And if you belong to Jesus, you never will be.

This week’s challenge is a simple one: each morning, before your feet hit the floor, pray just one sentence: “Holy Spirit, I’m not alone today. Please help me notice you.”

Then watch. He’ll show up - at home, at work, on the school run, in the queue at the shops.

▶️ Watch the full Sunday message here:

And if this stirred something for you, there’s more. New devotional videos land every morning on YouTube - one small step of faith at a time. Subscribe and walk through it with us.

When life gets stormy - when the job falls through, the relationship breaks down, the diagnosis arrives, the future feels uncertain - we do what feels sensible. We grip the sides, keep our heads down, and wait for it to pass.

The disciples did the same thing. They’d been fighting the waves all night when they saw something coming out of the darkness. Their first instinct wasn’t to step towards it. It was to shrink back in fear.

But not Peter.

This Sunday’s sermon looks at Matthew 14:22-34 - one of the most vivid, dramatic scenes in all of the Gospels. It’s the story of Peter stepping out of the boat and onto the water. And it raises a question worth sitting with this week:

What if the safest place isn’t where you feel safe - but where Jesus is?

Key Takeaway

Jesus doesn’t ask you to have it all worked out before you step. He simply says: “Yes, come.” And that has always been enough. We step. We falter. He grabs us. We walk on together. That’s not failure - that’s faith.

🎬 Watch the full sermon here:

If this lands with you, I’d love to hear about it. Just hit reply.

Grace and peace.

Rob

Peter had one that morning by the Sea of Galilee. He was tired, he’d worked through the night, he knew the water far better than the carpenter standing in his boat - and what Jesus was asking simply didn’t make sense. Every instinct he had, every bit of professional knowledge, every logical bone in his body said: this won’t work.

And yet.

“But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.” - Luke 5:5

Five words. And they opened the door to the greatest catch of his life - and then to something far greater still.

This week’s sermon at Maidenhead Salvation Army looks at Luke 5:1-11, and it asks a question that I think a lot of us carry around quietly: what does it actually mean to be called by God? Because it turns out, it’s not a job for the qualified. It’s an invitation for the willing.

Key takeaway: Jesus doesn’t step into polished, sorted, ready-for-ministry lives. He steps into ordinary boats - your workplace, your Monday morning, your unremarkable routine - and says the same thing he said to Peter: follow me.

Watch the full sermon here:

And if you want to go deeper this week, I’ll be releasing a brand new daily devotional series from tomorrow, picking up a different thread from Luke 5 each morning. Five minutes a day. Subscribe so you don’t miss a single one.

Grace and peace.

Rob