Darling Street Anglican Church: Recent Episodes
Mark Leach
Stories and teaching from Darling Street Anglican Church to help you connect with God and live a great life
A sermon exploring the bible's use of the metaphor of light applied to God, to Jesus, and to the church.
In this talk Mark Leach gives and overview and analysis of the history, politics, and theology of the war in Gaza.
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” n says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” o
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
How do we build a genuinely inclusive community in a consumer culture? In this talk we look at the teaching of Romans 12, and how the early church was to work together across massive religious and cultural divisions.
In this talk based on Romans 11 we explore how to live between disappointment and hope as we follow Messiah Jesus.
What does the rejection of Jesus as their Messiah, by so many ethnic Jews in the Apostle Paul's day, mean for our understanding of God?
Living as a Christian if full of challenges. In Romans 8:28-39 the bible presents 5 of these challenges, along with the way in which we can overcome them.
In this talk Mark develops a framework to help us trust God in a world full of suffering and death. This is grounded in Romans 8, one of the most significant pieces of writing in all of human history.
A short, practical introduction to how we live a life directed and ordered by the Spirit of God
What does it take to flourish? What is the role of Torah (or law) in this? What is the relationship of the Torah to the work of Messiah Jesus and the Spirit of Messiah?
This is an exposition of Romans 5:12-21, one of the great passages of the bible that explains God's great gift to humanity.
An exposition of Romans 4 and the world changing, culture shaping truth that we are saved by grace, not race, through faith, not Torah observance.
This talk addresses two key problems: Firstly, our problem is how can we ever be truly known and truly accepted? Secondly, how can God, knowing us perfectly, still accept us?
We start a series exploring the most influential letter in human history - the Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Rome. In this talk we set the scene as we look at the first 17 verses of chapter 1.
We all have to answer two basic questions as we live in this world: what's gone wrong? and what's the solution?
In this teaching we look at chapter 3 of James Bryan Smith's book, The Good and Beautiful You.
In this episode we discuss chapter 2 of the book, "The Good and Beautiful You" by James Bryan Smith. The topic is "The Sacred Body".
This is a summary of the first session. We are following along with the book by James Bryan Smith, "The Good and Beautiful You"
In this sermon Mark Leach explores the nature of love and the process by which we can become people of love.
A discussion with Australia's leading residential property forecaster, Robert Mellor, on all things property and faith. Robert shares his life story and then ends with a discussion and Q&A about the current market.
In this sermon Mark Leach explores the way in which God provides a truly radical solution to the problem of human evil.
2 At dawn Jesus appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
The New International Version (Jn 8:1–11). (2011). Zondervan.
A life lesson about meeting needs and growing up - John 6. In this talk we look at the miraculous feeding of the 5000 men (+ another 5 -10,000 women and children). And we learn a great deal about the way in which we are to grow up to be like Jesus as we work with him to meet human needs around us.
In this sermon Mark Leach explores the ideas found in John 5:16-47, in particular how our answer to the question, who is jesus?, has massive implications for every area of life.
Do you want to be well? What does wellness look like? How do we get it? And what does Jesus have to do with this?
In the context of the appointment and resignation of Andrew Thorburn as CEO of the Essendon Football Club, we discuss how we as a culture got to this point, where a football club could consider that membership in an Anglican Church could be incompatible with leadership of the club.
In this talk we examine the stages of faith displayed by a Jewish official as he encounters Jesus and asks Jesus to heal his dying son
In this exposition of John 4, we see that the key to living well in this world is to see everything in it with eyes of faith, the way Jesus did.
In John 3 Jesus has an interaction with a religious scholar and leader, Nicodemus, in which he tells Nicodemus that he must be born again. What did Jesus mean by this? What does it mean for us today?
In this sermon Kara Martin, an academic and practioner, helps us understand prevailing myths and half-truths about work, and points us to the better story that the bible tells.
A careful study of John 2, and Jesus clearing the temple, reveals the need each of us have for Jesus to cleanse our hearts of a work's-based, contractual approach to God, and to receive from Him a covenantal welcome into His Father's home.
As we study the second part of John 1, we see 4 titles given to Jesus, and look at how John the Baptist and Andrew respond to this Jesus
How are we to build truly healthy, inclusive communities? How do we value the truth whilst also showing unconditional acceptance? In this episode we explore how Jesus brings us the capacity to live lives full of grace and truth.
Join us to explore the implications of the view of God, and the world, which we get from a close philosophically informed reading of John 1:1-18
Continuing his series on the 7 Deadly Sins, Mark explores the nature of sloth and lust, and how the energy beneath each of these, for renewal and intimacy, can be directed towards healthy community.
Mark continues the series on how we can redirect the energy behind the 7 Deadly Sins into community building qualities.
Continuing his teaching on building healthy community, Mark Leach shows how we can transform the energy behind pride and gluttony into life giving, community building dynamics.
In this talk we explore how the energy behind each of the 7 deadly sins can be transformed towards building healthy community.
This talk will help you understand the benefits and the practicalities of building a life-giving, healthy community.
In this episode we look at what we are to learn from little children about entry into the kingdom of Heaven. For the technically minded this is an integration of attachment theory and theology...
On Pentecost Sunday Mark Leach explores the role of the church in the bible, and the role of the Holy Spirit in the church today.
In this final talk on the serious "Building Generous Hearts" Mark Leach goes through the final 4 principles of generosity. Trigger warning - this will provoke lots and lots of deep discussions and soul searching!
In this talk Mark Leach continues to develop on the theme of building generous hearts, and looks at 4 more principles of biblical generosity
This starts a series of talks on how we build lives of generosity. It includes 10 minutes of a finance update on our church (if you aren't part of Darling St Church you can skip this section!).
In this talk Mark Leach takes us on a journey exploring the role of women and mothers through the story of Deborah in Judges 4 and 5. A Mothers' Day sermon like nothing you've ever heard!
In this episode Mark Leach explains the New Testament teaching on 'energy'. After looking at the reasons why we don't find the term 'energy' commonly used in our English bibles, Mark explains the history of the translation of the original Greek word, before grounding all of this in Colossians 1:28-29 and exploring the practical implications of this energy paradigm.
In this talk Mark Leach helps us think about our longing and need for life beyond death as he poses the question, is death a comma or a full stop? If Jesus is who he said he was, then death is a comma, because resurrection awaits us, as it did Jesus.
Preached on Good Friday, in this talk Mark Leach helps us understand the central importance of sacrifice and submission in the journey to a great and meaningful life. This comes into clearest focus in the death of Jesus.
What does it mean to live a great life? Will following Jesus help me get such a life? In this talk Mark Leach looks at the life of the Apostle Paul, as he writes in 2 Corinthians 6.
What should we do with our lives? In this section of 2 Corinthians (chapter 5:11 to 6:2), we find God's plan for our lives.
TLDR
Become God's co-worker as an ambassador of Christ.
New heart. New vision. New mission.
We all seek glory. The question is how do we achieve this? In this talk, Mark Leach shows us, from 2 Corinthians 3, that only God has the power to make us glorious from the inside out.
In this talk Mark Leach helps us think through what God wants us to do with our lives. The teaching is based on 2 Corinthians 2:12-3:6
In this talk Mark Leach explores the complexity and challenges of healing and restoring relationships that have been damaged by one persons evil, or betrayal, or sin. It is based on 2 Corinthian 2:5-11
In this talk Mark Leach will share the 7 steps the Apostle Paul used in 2 Corinthians 1:12-2:4 to start to deal with the conflict with the church in Corinth.
We start a new season of teaching studying the letter of 2 Corinthians. In this introduction Mark Leach looks at the first 11 verses of the letter, focussing on the incredible reality that God comforts us in order that we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received.
In this talk you will learn how God has set us free to live lives of love. With an integration of Galatians 5 and Internal Family Systems theory, this is both insightful and inspiring and practical!
This exposition of Psalm 36 helps us understand our humanity and what this means for our connection with God.
As we start 2022 it is with the prospect of another year of uncertainty. Of disruption. Of a pandemic exposing the fault lines in our politics, our economies, our supply chains, and our hearts. So what are we to do? How are we to live? This passage, Luke 3:15-22, points us in the direction of hope. Hope that all that is truly broken in the world will be fixed. All the injustice ended. All sickness healed. All evil eradicated. Listen, learn, hope.
Listen to the radical implications of the way in which God chooses to fix/heal the world. In particular, the overturning of the human tendency to use power and privilege for selfish ends, and thus setting the conditions for women to flourish and for men and women to get along!
In this episode you will learn some ancient ways of praying - breath prayers, fixed hour prayers, and then some experimentation with the postures of prayer that we find in the bible. Listen. Learn. Pray continually.
This is part of a teaching series on the spiritual practices that help us live life with Jesus in the kingdom of heaven.
This is the first in a new season of teaching where we explore the spiritual practices that help us grow to become more like Jesus. You can find resources for this series in the book "The Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform Us" by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun
Have you ever wondered where to get the ability to love difficult people? Listen in as Mark Leach shows us, from John 13, how we can learn to love others, including the difficult and damaging people in our lives, the way that Jesus loves us.
Listen to Mark Leach teach us how we can find security and peace in the midst of all the changes we are experiencing as we come out of lockdown.
Listen to the wonderful stories of Lisa Leung, from Open Doors, as she shares how we can support persecuted Christians around the world.
Exploring and explaining the way in which followers of Jesus are to relate to governments and those in authority
A talk exploring Jesus teaching on embrace (who enters the kingdom), exclusion (who does not and why), and amazement (at the fact that anyone at all can enter the kingdom!)
Exploring spiritual power, prayer and the defeat of evil through the lens of Mark 9:14-29
An overview of the whole bible ending up in Mark 9:1-13 and the transfiguration of Jesus
Listen in as Bodil share her story of finding Jesus through a friend, living through the loss of an adult son, and establishing herself as a new migrant in Sydney.
Eliza Leedow share her story of coming to faith in Jesus as a child, and the ways in which God has worked in and through her in the midst of some serious family challenges.
How do we survive and thrive in the journey of faith? Teaching from the book of Hebrews, Mark looks at how we can develop spiritual resilience.
Listen in as Rolf Howard shares his story of coming to faith in Jesus as a teenager, and then serving Jesus through a lifetime of practising law and helping out in his local church.
Listen to Anne Van Vuuren share her story of life and faith. From meeting her South African husband Chris (or Fires as he was known) at the Munich October Fest, to coming to faith in Jesus as a mother of young children, to life after the loss of Chris to a brief battle with cancer, Anne's story is a wonderful testimony to the faithfulness of God (and her own resilience!).
Abraham's extraordinary encounter with God in Genesis 22 as he obeys God by taking his son Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him.
A talk examining the reasonableness and rationality of belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
An answer given to a question in church about the recent events regarding Christian Porter, and what it would mean to live a Christlike life when talking about this.
What does a truly great life look like? In this talk Mark Leach gives us a glimpse of what this is from Ephesians 3:14-21.
The first talk in a teaching series "A Time to Grow'. In this talk, Mark explores Jesus teaching in John 13 and the radical challenge to a life of love and service.
Phil 1:27-2:4 Looking at how God wants us to stand firm in persecution and stand united in the face of division and disunity.
How do you find a life of joy in the midst of setbacks and suffering? In this passage we find God's plan us to live lives of joy in the midst of it all.
An overview and introduction to the book of Philippians, looking at how we are to live lives of joy in the midst of suffering.
We pray for God to end the bushfires, which He does, and then He follows up by sending a global pandemic. What are we to do? In this sermon we look at how Habakkuk dealt with a predictably unpredictable God. Great comfort in times like these.
Looking at the paradox of a God who is love, and commands us to love, who also commands the Israelites to utterly destroy the Canaanites.
Studying Act 16 to help us understand why some people have a life changing encounter with God and others don't
Exploring how God reverses the fortunes of the vulnerable in chapter 1 of the book of Ruth
Exploring the nature and role of the gift of prophecy as we do the stuff Jesus commanded us to do
Exploring how we are to do the stuff that Jesus commanded us to do as a united, yet diverse, body.
A powerful call from God to 'do the stuff', empowered by Holy Spirit, from 1 Cor 12:1-11
Exploring two ways to live in a world full of mess. Based on Jesus teaching in Mark 7:1-23
Exploring how being a follower of Jesus gives each of us transcendant meaning and purpose in our lives as we look at the story of Mark 6:7-13
How we are healed through our connection with Jesus. This talk shows how attachment theory (a psychological theory) fits with the Christian experience of God and of life.
Looking at Jesus teaching on how to build a healthy self built on living for the approval of God, rather than the approval of others.
A study from Ps 23 looking at how dying to self is a necessary step on the path to a life without lack
Looking at how faith is the means by which we connect with God in such a way as to experience his all-sufficient love.
Looking at how to live a life without lack we need to understand our nature as humans and the nature and work of Satan
A study of Psalm 23 and how God makes available to us a life with Him that results in us living free of any lack, free of fear, free of worry.
Caroly Houmes, CEO of IJM Australia speaks about following the God of justice in a world of 40 million slaves
A look at how Acts 2 presents God's plan for the healing and renewal of humanity, and the way this happens through the work of the Spirit in forming a new community
A study of the problem, the power, and the solution to our tendency to idolatry and lies
Studying the nature and role of the heart, and how God can renew us from the inside out.
Exploring how "God with Us" in Jesus fulfills our deepest hopes and dreams, and quells our deepest fears
Looking at Luke 15 and casting a vision for Darling St to be a church to which the unchurched love coming.
A study at God's plan for leadership as a means of grace to equip us to hold on to Jesus
An introduction and invitation to the work of International Justice Mission in bringing freedom to the 40 million slaves of the world
Looking at how God gives us everything we need to form the kind of spiritual community we need to flourish and persevere in our faith
Examining how Jesus answers the deepest and greatest needs of our lives, and our culture
An overview of how essential hope is to the healthy functioning of all people, and especially children.
An exposition of the nature of God's radical grace through the lens of the 4 women in the genealogy of Jesus in chapter 1 of Mathew's Gospel.
The story of the Hebrew midwives who God used to save Moses, and hence the people of Israel
A look at the story of Sarah, the mother of the Jewish nation, and the mother of faith.
A study of the story of Eve in Genesis 1 to 3 and how it sets up our understanding of humanity
A look at Jesus encounter with a Samaritan woman - one of the great stories of the bible
Looking at John 2:1-11, how Jesus provides us with overflowing, abundance, messianic joy.