Recall from 2:9-11 that God exalted His Son after the humiliation portion of the incarnation. He did so by lifting Him up and assigning Him before all people the name which is above all names. The purpose of this exaltation was two-fold: that every knee should bow and that every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. All of this will result in glory to God the Father. But it should also result in our walking obediently to God now, for if we claim in words that He is our Lord and have bowed our knee to Him, we ought to live like it!

If you are saved, God has placed in you the desire to live a holy life, and He has given you the tools you need to actually accomplish it. No "woe is me" stuff here, "I cannot live for the Lord," "It is too hard," "It is too dangerous," etc. God works desire and enablement in you. Now, work them out, dear believer.

This is a story of incest and immorality in the highest levels of

We covered some of this in our study of Matthew 11:1-19 when we looked at John the Baptist’s depression in prison. We look at it from a different angle in these notes.

Some applications from this message:

As much as I hate to have to say it, God permits rank injustices of the worst kind, even to His people. We must be ready for that possibility. Christians in Canada are having to face this. We have had to face a little bit of it with the pandemic restrictions on religious worship. DEI and other doctrines that are running rampant mean that we will face such things in the workplace and society generally. And, when any of us face it, we all face it.

Sometimes there is a price to be paid for preaching righteousness like John did. But that price is worth the honor that it brings to God to do so.

People are hard-hearted and hard-headed. They do not see the most obvious things, particularly when it comes to love or, as I like to remind people, lust. It is very easy to mix up those concepts and feelings overrun reason and morality so that decisions regarding marriage and intimacy and living together and divorce and adultery are all messed up. Some people know it is wrong and do it anyway; others have lost the connection with moral reality and think it is just normal and not a problem. When you confront them with that, they become quickly defensive because they love what they are doing. The gospel can penetrate such force-fields, but we ourselves cannot.

We need to think about our motivations. Herod had some very complicated machinations going on in his head in which he wanted to get rid of John, but he knew better than to do that, and he had pressure from outside. We too have justifications and reasons and thoughts and desires that affect how we behave. We must make sure these complex motivations are lined up with Scripture and we do not allow ourselves to submit to the weakest or basest of motivations.

Note that our church building was closed January 9 and 16, 2022 due to COVID. Ministries from January 16 may be found on our Youtube channel. No recordings were made on January 9.

Tonight we partook of the Lord's table with a message focused on the question, what was the Lord Jesus anticipating during the last supper? The Lord knew of all events which were soon to come, including His suffering. We study multiple passages in Scripture which gives us insight to better answer this question.

Paul's hope is not only that the church would be of like mind and working together for the gospel, but that also they would not be frightened or intimidated by their adversaries. Paul's command in verse 27 is to have our conduct be worthy of Christ's gospel. Part of worthy conduct to be unified, and part of it is not to fear adversaries. This should be our aim whether our spiritual overseers are looking on at the time or not.

In this message speaker James Widgeon leads our study in the book of Obadiah. The Lord speaks through the prophet that judgement has come to Edom and her ruin has been brought through the nations sins and would be utterly destroyed. We review the covenant God established with Abraham as well as his sons Jacob who would father the nation of Israel and Esau who would father the nation of Edom. God has spoken that destruction and ruin will come to Edom because of how they mistreated their brother, the nation of Israel during their captivity. Later in the text, we see God's promise to restore the nation of Israel, whereby God's people would rule over the nations that had previously oppressed them and the kingdom will be the Lord's.

The gospel as it is often preached today tells of the death, burial, and

The teaching of the virgin birth of Jesus is essential to the Christian faith in the following ways: 1) essential to the person of Christ 2) Essential to the work of Christ 3) essential to the integrity of God’s prophetic Word 4) Essential though it may not initially be understood 5) Essential because denying it indicates a lack of salvation. The Christian God can do a stupendous miracle like the virgin birth. Are there any other “gods” who can do the same? None! No other “god” has ever truly taken up residence in a man in such a way that He can be said to be the God-man. But Jesus Christ is that man! Additionally, we pick up our study on Jesus' parable of the Wheat and Tares. We conclude as did Jesus. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!" If you have any spiritual hearing, turn up the hearing aid and pay attention! Listen to the words of Jesus in the Bible. Pay attention and figure out if you are a wheat or a tare.

Our Scripture reading was found in 1 Chronicles 23:1-32.

Last week we pondered the doctrine of the incarnation—

Our Scripture reading was found in Ezekiel 20:27-49.

The teaching of the virgin birth of Jesus is essential to the Christian faith in the following ways: 1) essential to the person of Christ 2) Essential to the work of Christ 3) essential to the integrity of God’s prophetic Word 4) Essential though it may not initially be understood 5) Essential because denying it indicates a lack of salvation. The Christian God can do a stupendous miracle like the virgin birth. Are there any other “gods” who can do the same? None! No other “god” has ever truly taken up residence in a man in such a way that He can be said to be the God-man. But Jesus Christ is that man!

In tonight's Christmas service, Pastor Matt leads our study where we see how Mary, knew that certain promises had to be fulfilled, because the angel told her of some of them, and she knew others from the Old

Our Scripture reading was found in Matthew 2:1-23.