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Published December 12, 2019

Good and Faithful Stewards

Today we come to the conclusion of our “Visual Theology” message series. We’ve been following the outline of Tim Challies and Josh Byers in their book “Visual Theology” as they look at the four basic pursuits of the Christian life.

These four things should be a part of every Christian’s experience.

  1. We should strive to grow close to Christ.
  2. We should strive to understand the work of Christ.
  3. We should strive to become like Christ.
  4. We should strive to live for Christ.

And I trust that over these past few months, you’ve been able to get a fresh understanding of why and how we do these things and hopefully, you’ve been able to pick up some real practical ways for how to live out those things out in your own life.

But we’re not quite done yet. We’ve got one more topic to tackle as we complete our final section of how we live for Christ.

And so I’d like to introduce one more new word to your vocabulary today: the word is stewardship

Now most of you will have heard of stewards or stewardess – they are the kind folks who take care of you in an airplane while you’re flying somewhere. They bring you drinks and snacks and tell you how to put on your seatbelt and how to exit in an emergency, and all of that good stuff.

But that picture of an airline steward doesn’t really give you an accurate understanding of what stewardship is all about. Stewardship is more than just being a waiter or someone’s personal butler. So to help us understand stewardship, I want to read for you a parable from Matthew 25.

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Published December 2, 2019

The Doctrine of Vocation

We are rapidly coming to the end of our Visual Theology message series. We’ve spent the last eight weeks talking about how we grow close to Christ, how we understand the work of Christ, how we become like Christ – and now today we are starting into our final section – how to live for Christ.

So to start us off today, I want to begin by asking you a question. And since we’re in a different setting here this morning anyway, I want you to take just a couple minutes to turn around in your seats and discuss this question with the people sitting around you. Its not a right or wrong answer kind of thing – I just want you to briefly talk about it and throw out some thoughts.

But here is the question: How do you think we will spend our time in eternity? What are we going to do for thousands upon thousands of years? What do you think life will look like for us?

Is it an endless choir singing to God? Are we all strumming harps on those fluffy white clouds? Are we playing road hockey on those streets of gold? What do you think life is going to look like for us all?

The Bible doesn’t give us too many specifics about our future activities in heaven, but this week, as I considered our topic today of living for Christ, and as I saw what the Bible has to say about how we live for Christ – I came to the conclusion that what God intends for us to do in heaven for eternity is probably very similar to what God intends for us to do here and now on the earth.

It seems to me that God’s purpose and plan for our lives won’t really change once we enter life after death. The things He wants us to do now are probably the same kind of things He’ll want us to do forever in heaven. Of course, the specifics will likely be different, but I think the end goal stays the same.

And as we work our way through today’s message, I think you’ll see what I mean, but my point for today is not to speculate about what we’ll one day do in heaven, but rather to determine what God wants us to do today. How does God want us to use our time – what does God want us to do with our lives here and now? It’s fun to speculate about what God will have us do for eternity in heaven – but it’s critical that we understand what God wants us to do in this life right here and now.

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Published November 25, 2019

The Process of Change

In the game of tribond, you are given three words and your job is to determine what those three words have in common. 

For example, if I say the words Christmas, family, and oak – what do these things all have in common? They are all kinds of trees.

How about this one: dentures, bats, stars – they all come out at night

How about this one: skates, the lawn, and your shoulder – they all have blades.

How about this one: oil, a diaper, batteries – and as a bonus word, Christians

Answer: They are all things that are frequently changed!

  • Every 5000 km, you’ve got to change oil in your car. 
  • Every few hours you’ve got to change the diaper on your baby. 
  • Every few months, you’ve got to change the batteries in your remote
  • And every day, if you’re a Christian, you’ve got to change to become more like Christ.

And of course, this is all a segway into today’s message.

If you haven’t been with us recently, we’ve been going though a series called Visual Theology.

It’s based on a book called “Visual Theology” by Tim Challies and Josh Byers. And as you can see on the title page, there are four main sections that we’ve been looking at.

So far, we’ve looked at growing close to Christ. We’ve looked at understanding the work of Christ, and today we are beginning to look at becoming like Christ.

And that’s why I’m bring up this whole idea of change – because becoming like Christ requires change.

As you read through the Bible, you will not find one single person who accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour and then didn’t change! It’s just not possible! No one who enters into an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ can ever remain the same. Change is a required part of the equation.

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Published November 18, 2019

The Value of Doctrine

Last week we began part two of our Visual Theology message series. You’ll recall that there are four main sections that we want to look at – four reasons why we study theology. 

#1. We want to grow close to Christ, 

#2. we want to understand the work of Christ, 

#3. we want to become like Christ, and 

#4. we want to live for Christ.

Those four things really summarize the four basic goals of the Christian life!

So last week we began looking at “Understanding the work of Christ” and we started with a super-condensed summary of everything that God has been doing since time began. We saw how all of history is part of God’s unfolding drama.  It’s like God is the ultimate writer and director, the world is the stage, and all of mankind are the actors. 

And we divided up this drama into four main acts.

  • Act 1 is Creation where God created the world and made everything good. 
  • Act 2 is the Fall where mankind chose to rebel against God and thus introduced sin and its consequences into the world. 
  • Act 3 is Redemption where God sent his Son Jesus to save us from our sin and it’s terrible consequences.
  • Act 4 is New Creation where God will finally eliminate sin and will once again make everything right.

And we discovered that we are currently living in Act 3 – where everyone of us has the opportunity to respond to God’s gracious offer of redemption which was made possible for us by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now is the time to make that decision. Now is the time to invite others to make that decision. Because at any moment, we could move into Act 4 when Christ returns to judge and eliminate sin and to restore His good creation for all who have been redeemed.

So last week really was a really big picture of what God is doing in the world.

Now today we’re going to shift our focus just a little bit. This morning, I want to spend some time talking about doctrine.

Now the word ‘doctrine’ is just about as intimidating as the word ‘theology’ – but it isn’t as scary as you might think. Doctrine really just means ‘teachings’. In the context of the church, it simply refers to what we believe and teach about God, about the Bible, about salvation, about ourselves, about the church, and all that stuff.

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Published November 12, 2019

The Great Drama of God

About six weeks ago we began our visual theology message series – based on the book by Tim Challies and Josh Byers. And as you can see on the title page, there are four main components that make up this series. These are like the four reasons why we want to study Theology (or why we want to study God)… These are four things that every Christian should want to do.

#1. We want to grow close to Christ, 

#2. we want to understand the work of Christ, 

#3. we want to become like Christ, and 

#4. we want to live for Christ.

Those are the four main reasons why we are studying theology – and these four components form the basic outline for these messages. 

In the first component, which Greg just finished for us last week, we talked all about how to grow close to Christ. In that section, we talked about everything from how the Gospel connects us to Christ to our new identity in Christ. We looked at how God speaks to us through the Bible, and how we speak to God through prayer. These are the basics of growing close to Christ.

The second component of this series (that we’re going to start looking at today) is designed to help us understand the work of Christ. In other words, not only do we want to have a personal relationship with Christ, but be also want to understand what He is doing in the world. This is a key element of the Christian faith – we need to understand what God has done, what He is doing right now, and what He’s going to do in the future.

You see, the Bible tells us that we are living smack-dab in the middle of an incredible story! We are all part of God’s unfolding drama. Our life on this planet is just one scene in an eternal, cosmic story that’s been playing out since time began. It’s like God is the ultimate writer and director and the world is the stage for his drama to unfold.

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Published October 28, 2019

The Bible Does…

So last week we were reminded of the many characteristics of the Bible.

It’s authoritative. It’s trustworthy. It’s without error. It’s alive. It’s powerful. It’s cohesive. It’s truth. It is the Word of God.

Simply knowing what the Bible is should be reason enough for us to want to spend time daily reading God’s Word – hearing what God has to say to us.

But we can’t stop with just reading it. Simply reading God’s Word isn’t enough. That’s a critical step #1, but step #2 is equally important – and that is that we have believe it and obey it. We have to live our lives in a way that reflects what we’ve just read.

James talks about this in James chapter 1, starting at verse 21….

So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. 23 For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 25 But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
James 1:21-25

We can’t just read the Bible – we have to accept it as truth and then live accordingly! If we don’t, James says it’s like glancing at your face in the mirror. Most of us do this every morning, we get up glance into the bathroom mirror – and we’re usually appalled at what we see! Crusties in the corners of our eyes, hair looking like we just went at it with the weed-whacker, drool residue on the side of our face – maybe even some pimples that grew up over night.

When we look in the mirror, the mirror tells us the painful truth. We’ve got some issue that we need to deal with. The question is: What do we do when we see that truth?

Do we walk away and forget what we look like? Do we just go on through our day oblivious to the disaster on our face? Hopefully not! As I look out at your smiling faces this morning, it looks like most of you – when you saw the truth in the mirror this morning – you did something about it!

You combed your hair. You washed your face. You popped the pimples or whatever…. But you addressed the issues that you saw in the mirror.

Well, we have to do that when we read the Bible too! When we read the Bible, it’s very much like a mirror – it shows us the things in our lives that we need to change. It tells us the truth about our situation. It points out the areas where our attitudes and actions are out of line with God’s.

Like we read in 2 Timothy 3:16 last week:

16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 2 Timothy 3:16

The Bible makes those things quite clear. But the question is: what will we do about it when we see the truth?

When we read those things that point out where we’re off track, will we walk away and just ignore the issues in our life – or will we actually do something about it?

Like James says, we can’t just listen to God’s Word – we must do what it says. Otherwise, we’re only fooling ourselves!

But on the flip side of that, if we do listen to and obey God’s Word – James tells us that we will be blessed. He writes in verse 25….

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