I was out of town preaching for my good friend Darren Hammermeister today, so my son, one of our deacons, and a young man in our church stood up and took my place. They each did a credible job serving our Lord today. Included in our day’s events is a testimony from my daughter, recently returned from a summer mission team to Mexico.

Where is Your Confidence? (Phil 3.1-10)

Rory Johnson

Our pastor’s son, Rory Johnson, preached in our pastor’s absence. His message asked the question, ‘Where is Your Confidence?’ That is, for your eternal life, do you place your confidence in your works or the works of another? Do you lay aside anything in your life that you might think important for the goal of laying hold of Christ?

The Action and Reaction of a Faithful Man (Gen 5-7)

Harry Lloyd

One of our deacons preached in our pastor’s absence. His message centred around the faithfulness of Moses as a servant of God. He challenged all of us to faithfulness in our own walk with God.

Mexico Mission Team Testimony

Susan Johnson

Our pastor’s daughter gave a testimony concerning her recent mission trip to Mexico. Susan recounts opportunities for soul-winning and ministry she experienced in Mexico and testifies to our need to depend on the Lord in every circumstance. (8 min.)

Elisha and God’s Protection of Israel (2 Ki 6.8-23)

Allan Farrant

One of our young men preached in our pastor’s absence. Allan’s message focused on the protection the Lord provided for Israel through Elisha in 2 Ki 6. He called us to faith and trust in the Lord in our personal lives as well.

Our messages for today…

Given over to a Depraved Mind (Rm 1.28-31)

a ‘bouquet’ of spiritual weeds

The consequences of human rejection of God includes the sins of inhumanity towards men – a whole plethora of wickedness, self-will, envy, pride, wholly lacking in any good thing. The root of these sins is idolatry, as in the sins of sensuality previously covered. The man who will not approve of God is given over to a disapproved mind – he cannot think straight and will not live straight. Any mind that approves these sins, to that extent at least, also disapproves of God.

Satan’s World

In which we take our final look at the doctrine of Satan, the adversary of man. In this lesson, we consider the teaching of Bible meaning of the term ‘world’, the authority of Satan in that world, God’s plan for the world, and the Christian’s place in the world.

Suffer the Little Children (Mt 19.13-15)

Our passage is not one we usually think of in connection with prayer, but it is said here that the parents of these children brought the little ones to the Lord for his blessing and prayers. Our Lord in this story teaches us something about salvation and something about his compassion for children. He does not teach us something about infant baptism, as some erroneously teach. Our Lord’s interest in children behooves his disciples to likewise be interested in the children of the local church, ministering to them to aid in their conversion and discipleship.

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A good day in church today, a few folks away, but the third visit from a new family with two young children. They seem to be getting used to us, we hope that they will commit to involving themselves in our ministry. It was a blessing to be able to minister to them again this week.

The latest from our pulpit…

Given over to Degrading Passions (Rm 1.26-27)

We come to a difficult passage in the revelation of God’s wrath against ungodliness … not difficult to understand, but difficult to preach in our current antagonistic culture. The manifestation of God’s wrath in this case takes the form of degrading passions. The prevalence of these passions flaunted in public today are evidence of God’s wrath pouring out upon Western civilization. We must not trivialize God’s antagonism towards our culture, nor may we ignore its lessons. For us to have access to God, we must acknowledge our need as sinners first – there is no grace for those who think they have no need.

The Activities of Satan (2)

In which we conclude our look at what Satan does, this time in relation to the Nations, to the Unbeliever, and to the Believer. Satan is active in deception, no matter who is his target. He attempts to lead men into cooperation with his agenda (at least) or even into adoption of his goals and priorities.

A Saving Prayer (Lk 18.9-14)

To me, this is one of the most convicting passages of Scripture, the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. We are very familiar with this story, and we tend to think of ourselves as this publican. After all, we aren’t like the Pharisee: proud, arrogant, self-sufficient… No we are much more like the Publican, and we are grateful to God that we are. “God, I thank you that I am like the Publican, and not like other men, like those Pharisees, and my neighbours who won’t darken the door of a church, and my co-workers who blaspheme God, and …”

Yes, we are like the Publican, aren’t we?

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May the Lord use these for a blessing to all who hear.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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