Living Our Faith

"And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice -- the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him." Romans 12:1

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The Scripture reading for tomorrow morning is Matthew 22:34-46. I know this is late, but I invite you to take a moment tonight or tomorrow morning (or whenever you get the chance) to read through all of Matthew 22. It’s helpful, even, to go back all the way to Matthew 20:29 and read through to the end of chapter 22. One commentator notes, “the fundamental theme of Matthew 20:29-22:46 is response to Jesus, that is, evaluation of who He is.” Two blind men, sitting by the roadside hear that Jesus is walking by and they cry out, “Lord, Son of...
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Our Scripture reading for this Sunday is Jonah 1:1-16. For the next four weeks we will be working through the book of Jonah. Next week we will look at Jonah 1:17-2:10. The following two weeks we will look at Jonah 3:1-4:3 and Jonah 4:1-11. As an introduction to Jonah and in preparation for this Sunday I invite you to read this quote from Paul Mackrell in his book, “Opening up Jonah.” Having been told to get up, Jonah gets up. But instead of going north and east, he chooses west. To use a British analogy, directed to the John O’Groats...
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Our Scripture reading for this Sunday is Romans 12:1-8.  This Sunday we will commission leaders, teachers, counselors, helpers, and others for the work of the church in this upcoming education season. Please take some time to pray for them today, and throughout the year, as they use their gifts to serve God, the church, and each of us. To prepare for the sermon, I'm including a quote from a short article written about this passage (especially the first two verses of Romans 12) by Elizabeth Shively. "Looking at the first two verses [of Romans 12], we might conclude that worship...
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The Scripture reading for this Sunday is Romans 13:8-14. (The sermon on Sunday will address more closely the reasons for Paul’s command to love in verses 11-14). “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.” – Romans 13:8 It’s important to note that in this verse, Paul is not talking about financial debt when he says let no debt remain outstanding as though we shouldn’t borrow any money. In verse 7, Paul has just instructed the Roman Christians to ‘pay what they owe’ with the idea being...
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The Scripture reading for this Sunday is Matthew 16:21-28. “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” – Matthew 16:21 In Matthew’s Gospel, this verse marks a transition in Jesus’ ministry. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in the Gospel of Matthew, just after the Jesus was tempted before his ministry began and the comment that Jesus would live...
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The Scripture reading for this Sunday is Matthew 16:13-20. “But what about you?” [Jesus] asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Last night I played in the first “playoff” game of the Windsor Ultimate (Frisbee) Summer League season. Since my team had the worst record throughout the regular season, we played the best team last night. And we got beat … bad (17-6 bad). But that’s beside the point. As the game got out of hand I got a little frustrated. I didn’t like the fact that...
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The Scripture reading for this Sunday is Psalm 67. A lot of Hebrew writing follows a very different structure than our English writing. In our writing, it’s normal to see a structure where the writing flows from beginning to end, concluding with the main point (or the climax of the piece) at or near the end. However, in Hebrew, there are a lot of writings where the main point is in the middle with parallel ideas surrounding the main point. This structure is called a chiasm and it is especially common in Hebrew poetry like the Psalms. Psalm 67 follows...
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The Scripture reading for this Sunday is Psalm 85. We don’t usually spend a lot of time remembering how good God used to be when things are going pretty well. We don’t wonder why God can seem so distant when we are in the middle of a time that God seems to be so close. We don’t wonder why God’s promises seem so far off when everything seems to be falling into place. We wonder those things when the opposite is true. We remember how good God used to be when, at the moment, God doesn’t seem so nice. We...
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Our Scripture reading for this Sunday is the Parable of the Weeds found in Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. Theodore Wardlaw writes, “This parable shines a bright light on our inevitable human preoccupation with drawing lines between who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out.’” After all, the servants seem to have a pretty practical approach to the presence of these weeds. Why not run through the field with a large group of workers, pull out the weeds, and cleanse the field? It’s obvious, isn’t it, in this parable that the wheat is ‘in’ and the weeds are ‘out’? Yes and no. There...
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The Scripture reading for this Sunday is Mark 12:1-12 – The Parable of the (Wicked) Tenants. Take a moment to read through this parable. If you can, read through it a couple times. It all seems pretty clear, right? The vineyard planter is God. The tenant farmers are the religious leaders of Israel. The servants sent by owner of the vineyard are the prophets. The (beloved) son is Jesus. And this all becomes clearer when this parable is considered alongside Isaiah 5:1-7 where the image of a vineyard is used to describe God’s covenant people – the house of Israel....
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The Scripture reading for this Sunday is Luke 15:11-32. For the next few weeks, like last summer, we will be studying the parables of Jesus. This week we look at one of the most well-known ones, usually known as, “The Parable of the Prodigal Son” or “The Parable of the Lost Son.” That name given to this parable indicates where we most often place the emphasis of this parable: on the younger brother. You know, the one who spurns his family responsibility, who takes his money and runs off to the big city lights away from the watchful eyes of...
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The Scripture readings for this Sunday – when we celebrate Ascension Day – are Acts 1:1-11 and Ephesians 1:15-23. Acts 1:7-9 – “He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid them from their sight.” Ephesians 1:18-21...
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The Scripture reading for this Sunday is Acts 17:16-34. “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there (Athens) spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.” Acts 17:21 Even though Athens wasn’t the bustling major city that it once was when Paul visited – no longer was it at the “center of the world” for economic activity or military power – it was still a bustling city when it came to philosophical ideas. The Athenians loved to learn. They loved to ponder philosophy and religion and new concepts. They took pride in being...
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Starting this Tueday night, April 8th at 7:00 PM, a group will be meeting at the church to study the video series "One Way Love" based on the book by Tullian Tchividjian. You can watch the video series on RightNow Media here. You may also purchase the book or eBook but you do not need a book for the study.  Although we will watch the videos at the beginning of our time together at the church, if you plan to attend please take some time through the week to watch the video once at home before the meeting. This way...
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The sermon on Sunday was on the discipline of Fasting. Our Scripture readings were Matthew 6:16-18 and Luke 9:23-27. There are two points from the end of the sermon that I think are worth highlighting now that we are into the third or fourth day of our fast. First, Fasting is about God. It reminds us that only God sustains us and God satisfies us. Fasting is not about what we give up. It’s about forgoing something in order to feast on God and to pray for a specific purpose. This week we are invited to pray for Teresia and...
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The sermon yesterday was on the discipline of Simplicity. Our Scripture reading was Matthew 6:24-33. Just a quick review – the discipline of simplicity has both an inner reality and an outer lifestyle. The inner reality is the understanding that we serve God (in the sense that a slave serves their master) and belong to Him (Matt. 6:24). The outer lifestyle then is a life centered on that inner reality of belonging to God, one that seeks first the Kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33). But the hard part about simplicity is that both the inner reality and the outer lifestyle...
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The Scripture reading for this Sunday is 2 Peter 1:12-21. Parts of the service this Sunday will focus on World Renew and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and not necessarily on this passage. Along with other CRC churches in Canada we will collect an offering for the ministry of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and we will use a confession and assurance litany provided jointly by World Renew and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. If you would like more information about the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, you can check out their website here.   In the past few days, Phoebe and I have been...
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Our Scripture reading for this Sunday is 1 Corinthians 1:18-31. What is wisdom? According to the Oxford English Dictionary (online) wisdom is defined as: the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement; the quality of being wise. (eg. “listen to his words of wisdom.”) A similar but different definition is found at Dictionary.com: the quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight. Those definitions fit the definition of wisdom in our world and in our culture today. Many believe that people gain wisdom...
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The Scripture reading for this Sunday is Matthew 2:13-23. I invite you to read all of Matthew chapter 2, and as you do, you will notice something about the focus of Matthew’s writing – something that makes him distinct from the other Gospel writers. Four times in chapter 2 (three times in our passage for Sunday) Matthew quotes or alludes to the Old Testament finding it’s fulfillment in Jesus Christ. It’s not that other Gospel writers don’t do the same, but Matthew is particularly interested in showing his reading audience (predominantly Jewish) how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Torah...
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Our Scripture readings for our Christmas worship service are: Luke 2:1-20 and Romans 5:1-8. At the beginning of our Advent series I read the following passage written by Rev. Paul DeVries (Brookside CRC, Grand Rapids, MI) and I think it is especially fitting to reflect on that again as we prepare to celebrate Christmas. We long for more. Especially at Christmastime, we long for more. I don’t mean the common longing for toys and family, carols and jolly feelings, eggnog and Santa. I mean a real, deep longing for something that actually fills us up and satisfies. We long for...
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