When I entered ministry, I didn't realize how dependent I was on God. I didn't realize how little I could affect any kind of change in anything. I didn't see how little love I had in my heart. I was detail oriented, able to manage many things, and had lots of capacity. But I didn't see how utterly ineffective I was at practically everything spiritually. The Scriptures talk about how you'll bear fruit and your fruit will remain, and over time, I realized I saw no fruit in what I did. I didn't see God's fingerprint anywhere. I called this series "Empowered", leading up to Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit was given to the church. God hasn't changed. He wants to do that in all our lives and in our midst. God gives his Holy Spirit and gifts from heaven and enables us to serve him. These gifts are not for ourselves but for the benefit of other people. Something must change in us so that we, like God, have eyes and a heart for other people and want to see real change come to them where we by ourselves can control nothing. Only God controls, and he gives tremendous influence when we walk in his ways.

Extra Reading: Numbers 27:12-23

Preacher: Bill Dyck

We spend a lot of energy, time and money becoming equipped for some skill. This is really important to do. We're glad that people have equipped themselves when we take our car to a mechanic or when we go to the hospital. We're glad that the doctor and nurses have equipped themselves. Anytime we get on the streetcar or the subway, we're glad the drivers know what they're doing. There are things also that God wants to do through us in this world, works that He calls us to, that he appoints us to, things that were not on our radar or are not even of our choosing. But God is sovereign, he's over it all, and he leads and he directs and he calls and he appoints at will. He's the King, the commander in chief. And in these things that he calls us to, he also equips us for and they are things that we need to lean into. So I want to talk about that here today, becoming equipped for God's purposes.

Extra reading: 1 Samuel 10:1-16

Preacher: Bill Dyck

We feel pretty ordinary. We feel too tired, we can't manage life as we'd like, especially in some of the secret places. We can't get all the strings tied up in our lives the way that we wish we could, we hate pain. But in the middle of it all, there is an extraordinary dimension because God invades our lives and it catches us by surprise. He graciously invades our lives and brings meaning, strength, hope, he comforts us, he helps us. And that's often where we leave it. We've made it through another day and God has graciously helped us. But God wants to do so much more that's gonna bring his purposes about on Earth. He awakens his Church to the glory of the Church's task. He moves in answer to the Church's prayer. He moves in answer to prayer and he moves in answer to united prayer. Ordinary people, convinced that God is preparing to answer us in royal fashion. So I want to talk here today about ordinary people at the threshold.

Extra reading: Psalm 5

Preacher: Bill Dyck

What do you do with the message of Easter the rest of the year, after the chocolate Easter eggs are gone? It's easy to blow past Easter and remain unchanged, easy to pack Easter into a box like we do Christmas decorations and wait till next April while our life settles into a routine. But Jesus means something very different from that. Imagine with if the Toronto Maple Leafs were to enter into such a winning streak that all their opponents trembled at their name and new the Stanley Cup was in the bag for the Toronto Maple leafs. Same players, same coaches, but something is very different. I was thinking about that because Easter changes us. Leading up to Pentecost, I called the sermon series "Empowered" because it describes what God does in us. It describes a radical change that comes in our lives because he is risen and because he's given the Spirit to all who know him. I want to begin here today out of Romans 8:1-11.

Extra reading: Ezekiel 36:22-32

Preacher: Bill Dyck

There are times in our lives where it seems we ride on top of the waves, everything is going as it should. There are other times it's not so clear. Our feelings get hurt, we suffer disappointments, we get depressed. But the story that we want to look at here today, about the resurrection of Jesus, speaks to all who feel despondent and like life doesn't always pan out the way it should. Maybe it's issues of weariness or darkness that seems to have settled upon you. Maybe a certain hopelessness about things, perhaps despair over personal failure or a loved one that's stuck in a dark place or it could be personal loss. It could be we're disillusioned by actions of political leaders. All of that is present in the story. And so here, our story lifts us up, it helps us face tomorrow. There are two gentlemen who are followers of the Lord Jesus and they were not expecting a resurrection and they were not expecting to meet the risen Christ.

Extra reading: Psalm 16

Preacher: Bill Dyck

What was probably Winston Churchill's shortest speech went like this: "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never in nothing, great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never give in." And with that, he sat down. William Carey, the pioneer missionary to the modern missionary movement in the 17th century, said of his biographer, "If he gives me credit for being a plodder, he will describe me justly. Anything beyond that will be too much. I can plod, I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything." So here today, we're coming to the end of the book of James in this series I called Keeping It Real. I want to talk about sticking with it right till the end. How can we be people who are steady and unwavering, staying with our faith right till the end.

Extra reading: Matthew 21:1-11

Preacher: Bill Dyck

The songs we use during our service are chosen from the Christian Copyright License Incorporated database. As I was choosing the songs for today, I came across a song called "If I could win the lottery". That is quite real to us. We see how if we could come into a lot of money fast how many of our troubles would be solved. We are walking through the book of James and today's passage contains many warnings about our relationship with money. My son is up North quarterbacking trucking into the North country where there are no roads. They send fully loaded trucks across ice lakes. If you're the trucker who is lumbering across the lake, you want to know someone has gone ahead of you to confirm that the ice is at least 1m thick, and if not, to warn you. This passage speaks of coming judgment in the context of our relationship with money. There's a warning that you're on thin ice, don't just go with the flow of society, something's coming that you can anticipate and live accordingly. James 5.

Extra reading: Proverbs 8:1-11

Preacher: Bill Dyck

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