This morning I want to unpack a passage as we're walking through the book of James that I think is a passage for city dwellers. I grew up on the farm where our closest neighbor was a kilometre away but I've lived here in the city for many years. In the city, people make a lot of plans, they don't sit still, their calendars are full, they know where they want to go. There's clearly nothing wrong with making plans or being goal-oriented. I wonder though if we overstep our bounds a little in the making of our plans. It's called presumptuousness. I want to read from James 4.

Extra reading: Daniel 4:28-37

Preacher: Bill Dyck

This week is our annual meeting and it gets me thinking about how God planted this church. He builds the church and keeps it going and he does it for a definite purpose. The question for us is how do we fulfill His purposes for us? And how do we thrive for a long time where God has put us? Much fruit has been born out of our church and God has done many things, but it's not just a past that we speak about. It's what God has in mind for us for days to come. The backdrop to these questions is a bit dark though. This last weekend, I heard about two more churches that closed, shut the doors, sold the buildings and they're gone off the map forevermore. And it seems to be a bit of a trend within and around the city. God had desires for those churches too. He had plans for them too. He raised them up too. He delighted in them. So this is a sobering thing for me. Here today, I wanna talk about how to be a church that stays with it, out of James 4.

Extra reading: Psalm 131

Preacher: Bill Dyck

What's amazing the story of Joseph and his brothers is, there's the plans of man and then there's the plans of God. Joseph ends up ruling all of Egypt under Pharaoh, and his brothers end up coming to him and bowing down before him, the one that they sold. But Joseph is full of forgiveness for them because he's got a heavenly perspective. He says,"do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life, to preserve for you a remnant on the Earth." It's just a wonderful reminder, how good the plans of God are. It is not always easy to be swept up in the plans of God. I'm gonna be preaching from James 3 which presents two kinds of wisdom, one from above and one from below.

Extra reading: Genesis 37:18-36

Preacher: Andrew Hubbard

There are a few words that were written on a tombstone in England. This is how it reads: "Beneath this stone, a lump of clay, lies Annabella Young who on the 24th of May began to hold her tongue." Presumably May 24 is the day that she died. The tombstone reflects something of the struggle that we face in controlling our words, using our words for good purposes. Someone once asked, "If someone paid you $10 for every kind word that you spoke about other people and they also collected $5 for every unkind word, would you be rich or poor?" Today, out of the book of James 3, I want to think with you about how we can make our words count.

Extra reading: Proverbs 26:18-28

Preacher: Bill Dyck

We don't like things that are false. We don't like spam emails or calls. We don't like people trying to sell us things that are not the real thing. We don't like getting duped and we learn to be guarded because it seems like all those things are on the rise. I was thinking that that may be how many people in our world think and feel about the Church and about Christians in general. There have been many fakes, they say, who aren't real. They're not authentic and what they say and do doesn't match. It understandably bothers people, it seems like hypocrisy of the highest order. We can't change what's out there. But we can make sure that our faith is real, to make sure that we are real. That's what I want to talk about here today. Out of James 2. It's just a question: Is your faith for real.

Extra reading: Isaiah 49:1-7

Preacher: Bill Dyck

Preacher: Andrew Hubbard

Extra reading: Deuteronomy 16:18-20

Preacher: Bill Dyck

Extra reading: Isaiah 55:6-13

I know a woman who got really sick and thought it was an issue with her stomach. It got so bad she had to go to the hospital. It turned out to be nothing serious and dissipated shortly after going to the hospital, but not before the doctors had taken all kinds of images. They found that everything was dissipating, but they said, "we see a couple spots on your lungs that you really should get checked out". They sent her home because her other symptoms just vanished, which in fact turned out to be lung cancer in its early stages which they were able to catch and treat. I think we really are probably consistently poor at figuring out the trials and negative circumstances in our lives. We see with such limited vision. but God is bigger. I want to talk today about why trials are the greatest thing of all, out of James. We will walk through the book of James in coming weeks and will call this series "keeping it real".

Preacher: Bill Dyck

Extra reading: Deuteronomy 8:1-10

We find ourselves sometimes in waiting rooms. What's interesting about the waiting room is that nobody is in a waiting room any longer than they have to be. Toronto General Hospital has a very nice waiting room, nice coaches, nice reading material. But nobody is in that waiting room one minute longer than they have to be. Nobody comes in from the streets and just sits there and reads the good magazines. I find the same in my dentist's office. I find the same at my mechanic. Nobody comes to a waiting room just to hang out. We find ourselves as God's people in a waiting room. And there are whispers that come to us from God in the waiting room. I wanna read out of Matthew 24.

Preacher: Bill Dyck

Extra reading: Isaiah 43:7-13

We've been going through different themes through this year's advent Sundays. Today's theme is Peace. What comes to your mind, what issues, what situations are in need of peace? Where are you longing for peace? Today I will preach from Isaiah 9:1-7 on the things that make for peace.

Extra reading: Luke 1:67-79

Preacher: Andrew Hubbard