Back to Church Sunday 2018
Get your church ready for September 16, 2018
5 Life-Altering Parables
A new preaching series from Luke 14-16
Discovering Truth When it Hurts
4 week sermon series from the Psalms
Teach Your People to Get Connected
Understanding the next steps to following Jesus
I Love My Church
5 week campaign on the beauty of Christ's bride
Hear Jesus Whisper, "Follow Me"
6 week series about Jesus changing ordinary people
We love because God loves us.
Thirteen years ago when I first started preaching, the scariest part of it was knowing that sometimes, people really do listen. It has been an incredible privilege, a humbling privilege, to be listened to by you. Thank you. What have you heard? I don’t know what you have heard, but I ...read more
Scripture: Matthew 22:34-40
Tags: Love, Greatest Commandment
Denomination: Baptist
We can relate to God as Friend and Brother through Jesus.
Most Canadians will say they believe in god. Now of course, what that means will vary greatly, and I suspect that for a good number of those who say they believe in God it is not something they have deeply examined or thought about. It might be like saying, “I believe that people have ...read more
Scripture: John 15:1-17
Tags: Brother, Friend, Abide In Jesus, Vine And Branches
We can relate to the Spirit through the feminine imagery present in scripture.
God the Father. God the Son. And God the Holy Spirit. Three of my favorite things to talk about, and today we are going to talk about God the Holy Spirit. We talk less about the Holy Spirit than about the Father and the Son, and I think we understand the Holy Spirit less than we understand the ...read more
Scripture: Genesis 1:1-27
Tags: Holy Spirit, Holy Trinity
This sermon is a compilation of scripture in the form of a 'letter' from God to his children describing His love for us.
Last Sunday, I told a story and showed a video to conclude my sermon. For those of you who may not have been here, it was a story about a father and his handicapped son. When most of the medical system had written this child off as “a vegetable”, this dad refused to give up. He found ...read more
Scripture: Proverbs 4:20-22
Tags: Divine Love, Father God
Love is a powerful motivator and our lives should be lived from a foundation of love.
What Love Does To Us June 16, 2013 Intro: We’ve already had a full meal – on Scripture, on the depth of poetry in music expressed as prayers of our hearts, on the celebration of new life and a family committed to have Jesus as the center, and on the testimony of faith of a man in ...read more
Scripture: Luke 7:36-50
Tags: Foundation, Lectionary, Authentic Love, Love's Effect
God speaks gently to us when we are in a daily relationship with Him, but sometimes He needs to us a spiritual 2 x 4 to get our attention.
I read the following story in a sermon online by Joseph Smith (http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/major-adjustments-joseph-smith-sermon-on-church-purpose-of-60305.asp?page=0) The old farmer claimed that he could command his mule with nothing more than a few soft words, no whips or prods ...read more
Scripture: Acts 9:1-22
Tags: Community, Obedience, Paul's Conversion
God's faithfulness and action in seasons of change
When I mapped out our sermon series post-Easter, I had an idea that it might lead us into a season of transition coinciding with my forthcoming handing over the leadership of our church to the next person God is preparing already to come and lead us into a new thing. I didn’t know for sure, ...read more
Scripture: Nehemiah 1:1-13:31, Deuteronomy 28:1
Tags: Nehemiah, Obedience, Prayer Answered
Selflessness is the key characteristic in Jesus' command to take up our crosses and follow him. The stories of Jochebed, Hannah, and Mary (Jesus' mother) illustrate selflessness.
One of the critical characteristics of a follower of Jesus is almost completely non-existent in our society. Now I say “almost”, because there are still times when we see and celebrate it, but those times are largely times of extremes. The prevailing “wisdom” is completely ...read more
Scripture: Luke 9:23-25
Tags: Obedience, Mother's Day, Selflessness
This is the story of Pentecost along with stories of revival from more recent church eras.
Last Sunday as we were preparing for worship, just before the service, our guest worship leaders were playing a prelude. The music finished, and as Pastor Garret came forward to begin the welcome and announcements I heard a sweet little voice right behind me loudly proclaim, “again! ...read more
Scripture: Acts 2:1-47
Tags: Pentecost, Revival History
Sometimes it is difficult to see what God is doing because we are too close to the situation; it is helpful to remember and place our hope in God's long-view perspective.
When I was a kid, I used to get a magazine in the mail every month, I think it was Canadian Geographic for kids or something similar, and one of my favorite parts was on the second to last page. It was about 9 pictures, super close up, and the game was to see how many of those objects you could ...read more
Scripture: Revelation 21:1-22:5
Tags: Hope, Perspective, New Heaven
David did not kill Goliath - God did.
We all face obstacles in life. Part of what makes life fantastic, exciting, worthwhile, and energizing is having a goal or a purpose or a call that is so worthwhile that we will fight through any obstacle, overcome any difficulty, literally “move any mountain” to overcome it. And I ...read more
Scripture: 1 Samuel 17:1-51
Tags: Trust, Obedience, Men's Day
Moses raised many concerns about God's call in his life and God responded to each one of them.
I’ve titled today’s sermon, “How to lose an argument with God”. The simple answer is: get into one. I’ve had a few arguments with God, not too many because I like to think I’m a quick learner and I learned pretty early on that God’s way is, honestly, ...read more
Scripture: Exodus 3:1-4:18
Tags: Obedience, Argue, Doing God's Will, Signs
Abraham fully obeyed God, even when God's command was difficult to follow.
Me and more than 11.4 million other people, on average, watched the History Channel TV production entitled “The Bible”. And, by the way, that is a lot of viewers – it was #1 in the ratings. It was a series of 10, 1 hour episodes which aired leading up to Easter, and the DVD ...read more
Scripture: Genesis 22:1-19
Tags: Sacrifice, Obedience, Provision, God's Provision
Our salvation has been secured by Jesus rising from the dead, we receive salvation daily, and we will receive our full inheritance as the children of God in the fullness of time.
We know the story well, but it is so good it must be told again! It seemed death had won. It seemed hope was gone. It seemed the dream had died. It seemed that evil had triumphed, and that perhaps Jesus was not who we believed Him to be. Maybe He wasn’t the Messiah. Maybe He ...read more
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:3-9
Tags: Salvation, Hope, Easter Resurrection
Jesus was a revolutionary who everyone was talking about prior to the feast of Passover.
I’ve been reading and re-reading the Palm Sunday story this week, not so much for the story itself because that is familiar to all of us – Jesus comes to Jerusalem for Passover, He sends His disciples off to steal a donkey (it’s ok – I’m sure they took it back when ...read more
Scripture: John 11:45-12:37
Tags: Death, Revolutionary, Easter Palm Sunday
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