We had a special service this Wednesday evening in our church, so I thought I would share it with you. I first met Roberto Coelho when he was thirteen and his father and I were new missionary appointees with Baptist World Mission. Now Roberto is grown up, seminary trained, and serving the Lord alongside his father. We have many mutual friends, including our not too distant missionary co-laborer, Darren Hammermeister. The Coelho’s were visiting the Hammermeister’s so we were delighted to be able to have them in our service tonight.

Below is a link to the message and a summary of the service.

Building Churches Around the World – Roberto Coelho (Ac 16)

A special service for our mid-week this week: a missionary presentation from bro. Roberto Coelho, missionary to Brazil. Roberto works with his missionary father in a church planting effort in Sao Paolo, one of the largest cities in the world.

Our message tonight includes the audio from the Coelho’s slide presentation. The message addresses the means the Lord uses in building his church.

Our weekly sermons can be found below:

Given over to Impurity (Rm 1.24-25)

Working our way through Romans 1, we are discerning Paul’s anatomy of sin. The first category of sin is impurity or uncleanness – a word which describes the filthiness of especially sexual sin. It was associated with pagan idolatry in ancient times, and not so far removed from paganism of modern times. It affects us all from such subtle ways as slightly ‘off-colour’ language to the exploitation of sexuality in every possible way in our culture. May God help us keep our walk clean in the midst of a world of uncleanness.

The Activities of Satan (1)

In which be begin a discussion of what Satan is up to. We covered Satan’s activities in antagonism to Christ and to God. More to come next week.

Just as the Lord Commanded (1) (Lev 8)

For communion today, we begin looking at the ordination of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood. These passages form the context for Lev 1-7, giving us a clearer understanding of the meaning of the sacrificial system by its application to living events. In this message I had intended to look at aspects of Aaron’s activities and Moses’ activities that foreshadow the work of our blessed Lord in redeeming us. Well, I found as I prepared that there was much to say just on Aaron so we left Moses for next month. We see in Aaron many aspects of our Lord’s high priestly work for us.

~~~

Attendance was up today, though still a few regulars away. The young couple who visited a few weeks ago returned for a second time, praise the Lord! Another young couple also visited for the first time. A pastor friend in Edmonton had mentioned to me that they were moving our way, so we were glad to see them today. The young lady surprised me when she reminded me of her maiden name – I knew her when she was a little girl and sold a house to her parents about 20 years ago. What a blessing to meet her again along with her husband and their young children. They are earnest young believers whom we hope will become a great asset to our church. With these couples, we suddenly seem to have a growing Sunday school, much to the delight of our teachers.

I travelled home from Alberta (a surreal statement to me!) on Saturday, leaving Calgary at 4:30 am, arriving at the ferry at 2:30 pm BC time. 11 hours and 11 sermons later! The week was spiritually enriching for me!

Here are our messages from this Sunday. The first was my sermon from Family Camp, the last was preached in our living room since we are still under renovation in our fellowship room at church.

Finding Joy in the Regular Christian Routine (1 Chr 1-9)

Our message this Sunday morning was the sermon I preached at Family Camp, somewhat expanded. The message centers on our reason for rejoicing: the certainty that God keeps his promises. That is Ezra’s point in the list of the genealogies of Chronicles. In prominent place are the David line and the Levitical line, the twin centers of God’s promises in the OT – the throne and the temple, priests and king. Though the post-Babylon nation had no throne, and a diminished temple, the promises of God remained sure. And so should our confidence to go on living a life of faith in our dispensation, trusting in the still to be fulfilled promises of our good God.

The Sin of Satan

We continue our discussion of Satan, following last week’s discussion of his creation with this week looking at his sin. Two issues were the main discussion – the fact that God is not surprised by Satan’s sin (but not the cause of it) and that Satan’s sin is centered in pride: “I will”.

The Prayer you should always Pray (Lk 18.1-8)

Our series on prayer takes us to a unique lesson concerning prayer, a second coming prayer. The prayer is one that we should always pray with confidence: the prayer for the vindication of the saints. We have the Lord’s assurance that this prayer will be answered and it will be answered suddenly. We should not faint along the way, but be persistent in this prayer, believing God to the end that he will vindicate his own for his name’s sake.

~~~

I trust that you all had a great day in the Lord on the Lord’s day as well.

We had a blessed day in the Lord today with a visit from the Christian parents of one of your young adults in our congregation. Here are the sermon summaries and something extra…

The Judgement of Sin (Rm 1.24-31)

We come now to the judgement God metes out for sin. When we read that God’s wrath is being poured out on the sins of mankind, we may think of things like disasters, illnesses, shortened lives, and a great judgement to come. Romans 1 reveals that the ongoing outpouring of God’s wrath against sin is more sin. God, responding to man’s refusal to glorify, to man’s ingratitude and pride, by removing restraint allows men to wallow in a morass of uncleanness, shameful passions and disapproved minds. But for all that, there is hope… men can put all their sin into the past tense and become faithful children of God, clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

The Creation of Satan

In which we consider the questions when and with what nature Satan was created. We look at Ezek 28 (among other passages) and consider whether it is only a description of a human king or whether indeed it also has application to the creation of Satan.

~~~

Our fellowship hall is under renovation and the work precluded our use of it for our church lunch this week. Instead, we invited our folks over to our house for lunch. After lunch we had a time of fellowship and testimonies, replacing our pm service.

We started with testimonials about Family Camp, but our hearts were blessed with many other good words about the good work of God among us. Though we live in troubling days, we serve a great God who preserves us in the midst of our wicked world.

You can find some pictures of the event at our church site, here.

~~~

Wherever you are serving God, I trust you also had a blessed day in partnership with saints around God’s word.