Introduction Last week, we looked at how in our dark times, our world is in desperate need of hope. We also saw that Jesus came as the hope-giver. That is Good News. What else do we need in these turbulent times? It just so happens that the second Sunday of Advent is that of peace.…
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We have recently started a sermon series on the Acts of the Apostles. There is some background information that is helpful but doesn’t necessarily fit in a sermon. Acts is the sequel to the Gospel of Luke and was written by the same author. Although they are separated by the Gospel of John in our…
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Luke 24:50-53 Introduction What were the most theologically significant events in Jesus’ life? That’s easy, just follow the holidays. What are the two biggest holidays for the Christian Church? Christmas and Easter, representing Jesus’ birth and his death and resurrection. Those are the events we really need to know. But what about the ascension? The…
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Luke 24:44-49 Introduction As many of you know, I am a chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces reserves. I have long been interested in the military and their way of doing things. I even see a number of intersections with the military and the church. I don’t think I am too far off the track,…
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Luke 24:36-44 Introduction I want you to imagine that the risen Jesus was coming to visit you. Not a dream or a vision, but appearing to you physically. What would you do to prepare yourself? I suspect that one of the things that you would want to do is to get ready to listen. I…
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Luke 24:13-35 Introduction How did you come to know Jesus? Was it one big moment of coming to understand Jesus or was it a long process? I was once stopped by some evangelists who wanted to check to see if I was really a Christian. They asked how I became a Christian. I responded that…
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Luke 24:1-12 Introduction Have you ever heard that saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is”? This is a good general rule of thumb. For example, if you receive an email saying that someone from another country, who you don’t know, has left you one million dollars, you should be…
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Luke 23:44-49 Introduction On the day that we call Palm Sunday, Jesus entered into Jerusalem. This is often called the triumphal entry because it looked like Jesus was at the height of his ministry. People were cheering, they were throwing their cloaks and waving their palm branches and it looked like some of them were…
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Luke 23:26-43 Introduction In many ways, the current pandemic is happening at a terrible time. Not that there is ever a good time. But we are approaching Easter, the high point in the Christian calendar. COVID-19 is threatening to disrupt our Easter celebrations. None of us want that. In another way, it couldn’t have come…
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Luke 23:1-25 Please note the video and audio contain the entire service and not just the sermon. Introduction Last week we took a look at Jesus’ religious trial. There we saw that during his interrogation, it was revealed that Jesus was in fact the Messiah and the Son of God. This was important for the…
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Luke 22:66-71 Introduction As a young person, I loved comic books. For quite a while I had a number of thousand of comics. I started by reading army comics but eventually moved onto superheroes. While I no longer collect comics, I still enjoy superhero movies. If you pay attention to these characters, you will realize…
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Luke 22:54-62 Introduction It has been pretty rare for me to ever get first place in any competition. This was especially true in school when it came to any physical activity. I was a pretty scrawny kid. We were doing a number of different exercises one day in gym class and they were ranking how…
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Luke 22:47-53 You don’t know me but I’m one of Jesus’ disciples. Not just any disciple, but one of the big twelve. I was there from the beginning. I can’t even begin to tell you what it was like spending all that time with Jesus. He was like no one else I had ever met.…
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Luke 22:39-46 Introduction Bad things are going to happen to us. You may have some bad things happening now. If not, you have in the past and you will in the future as well. Get used to it. One of my pet peeves is the teaching that Christians are immune from suffering, that God will…
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Luke 22:14-23 Introduction When I think about my time growing up in church, it is interesting to note what stands in my mind. It is not so much Sunday school lessons as it was going to the altar to receive communion, or as we called it, the eucharist. I was raised Anglican and we celebrated…
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Luke 22:1-6 Introduction When we think of the story of Jesus, what do we think of? Some of us may automatically go to the crucifixion and resurrection. One of the reasons we have been doing this series on Luke is to show that there is much more to the story. At the same time, the…
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Luke 21:25-38 Introduction For those of you who are sports fans, you may know the anxiety of whether your favourite team is going to win. The situation may be that your team losing by a significant margin and you are hoping for a last minute comeback or it may be a very close game which…
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Luke 21:7-19 Introduction When I was a student in elementary school, I was not good at sports. But there was one thing that I was good at and that was running. When you are the smallest kid in the class, you get good at running. But I need to be clear, I was only good…
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Luke 8:1-3 Introduction What is the most important role in the church? Is it the preacher? While I hope my preaching is helpful, I could call in sick right before a service and you could still have an inspiring and God-honouring worship service. Is it the musicians? Some churches don’t use musicians at all. What…
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Luke 2:41-52 Introduction There is part of me that wants to preach on this passage specifically about Jesus’ experience in the Temple. For one reason, it is interesting because it is the only story we have of Jesus as a young boy. The other reason is that as a parent it blows my mind that…
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Luke 21:1-4 Introduction Some times we think we know what is going on but we really don’t. We think we have the facts but we misunderstand what is actually taking place. I recently heard this story about the author, Arthur Miller, who was recognized by a school mate first as a fellow student and only…
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Luke 20:41-44 Introduction It is possible to understand written or verbal communication by just direct contact with the information. That is how we read newspapers and other media sources. We know nothing about the reporter or author, we just interact with what they present. But understanding the person behind the information can take the communication…
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Luke 20:27-40 Introduction Our message is looking at a story of seven brothers who all married the same woman but kept dying after getting married. What kind of message is that for Thanksgiving? We want something up beat. We want something that gets us excited about life and what God has done for us. To…
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Luke 20:20-26 Introduction I have visited many of church members over my twenty or so years of pastoral ministry. I have found that you can tell a lot about a person when you visit them in their home. Some homes are filled with family pictures, some with knick knacks, some with shelves of books. In…
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Luke 20:9-19 Introduction Have you ever experienced rejection in some area of your life? I suspect that there is a specific example that comes to mind at the word rejection. How did that make you feel? As I was thinking about this, I realized that I have a really good grasp of the concept of…
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Luke 19:45-48 Introduction I grew up in the Anglican church. In addition to our worship services, an important part of our church rhythm was bake sales, yard sales, barbecue fundraisers, spaghetti dinners and so on. It seemed that every month there was some sort of fundraising event going on. I enjoyed it, not just because…
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Luke 19:11-27 Introduction Does anyone here actually hope to be a failure? And if you achieve that, are you then a success? Everyone wants to be a success. Whether that is in work life, family life, or any other area of life. But how do we measure success? How do we know if we have…
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Luke 19:1-10 Introduction I didn’t start wearing glasses until I was in my mid-teens. Not that I was able to see well before then. I remember my grade 9 English teacher making me stand up right in front of the screen to read some text because I couldn’t see it from my desk. Still, it…
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Luke 18:35-43 Introduction I almost didn’t preach on this passage. The reason for that is that it would be easy to give it a simple reading that Jesus heals the physically blind. We have a number of people in our congregation that are blind. To be honest, I don’t know what it is like to…
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Luke 18:18-30 Introduction One of the most frustrating experiences is knowing that someone wants something from you but you don’t know what it is. Expectations without clarity can create tremendous anxiety. I was once hired as an associate pastor at a church and was told that my job was to make sure that the senior…
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Luke 18:15-17 Introduction The image of childlike faith has long been attractive to Christians. My fear is that it has become an excuse for lazy thinking. I’ve known Christians who have boasted that they don’t have to confront the hard questions because they have a childlike faith. They even have a passage to prove it.…
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Luke 18:9-14 Introduction What is the most destructive activity to a church? To listen to the church’s rhetoric over the years, you would think that it was sexual sin. Now I don’t want to downplay that, as the Bible indeed describes that as serious. But the Bible talks just as much, if not more about…
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Luke 18:1-8 Introduction One of the criticisms that I have heard lately is about the frequent offer of “thoughts and prayers” when tragedy strikes. Whether it is a personal health crisis, a natural disaster or a violent terrorist attack, people send out by email and social media messages of “thoughts and prayers.” This really bothers…
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Luke 17:20-37 Introduction If we consider ourselves Christians, it would make sense that we would seek to follow Christ. That means more than just performing the right rituals and ceremonies. It means trying to live like Christ and also sharing the same message that Christ shared. But what was that message? We are told in…
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Luke 17:11-19 Introduction Let’s be honest that there are certain character traits that are rather annoying. We are not going to compile a full list but perhaps we can agree that being unthankful would be near the top. Have you ever known a person who never expressed thanks? I once worked with a leader who…
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Luke 16:19-31 Introduction Last week, we looked at what I consider the most confusing parable. The one we are looking at today is what I would call, a somewhat confusing parable. However, the confusion is for a totally different reason from the unjust manager. What is so confusing about this parable? It concerns two questions:…
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Luke 16:1-15 Introduction What kind of people should be our role models? Who is that you look to to emulate? Who would you point your friends, your children, your grandchildren to in order to illustrate behaviour worth copying? Our North American culture is in a time of rethinking who our heroes should be. In the…
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Luke 15:11-32 Introduction The parable of the prodigal son is one of the most well known parables in the Bible. In fact the phrase prodigal son is a part of popular speech, even for people who never attend church or read the Bible. But this parable is also one of the most misunderstood. I hope…
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Luke 1:26-38 Introduction Can you think of specific people in your life that have been influential in your spiritual development? When I think about those who have helped me grow, I can think of a number of pastors and professors. Of all the people you thought about, how many were teenagers? I would like to…
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Luke 1:5-25 Introduction Have you ever been in a position when you had some amazing news to share? Something had happened. Perhaps you got engaged or you were expecting a baby or you just got your dream job. When you have big news, who do you tell first? That’s a big decision. For some people,…
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Luke 15:1-10 Introduction What is it that gets you excited? What is it that makes you want to give a shout for joy? This won’t surprise many but for me it has to do with books. I love books but there is a specific kind of situation that really makes me happy. From time to…
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Luke 14:25-35 Introduction How much does it cost? When anyone in my family asks me a question, the most likely response that you will get from me is: How much does it cost? My children love to strategize about what presents they want for birthdays and Christmas. They are tech-savvy enough that they can research…
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Luke 14:15-24 Introduction How would you describe the ideal Thanksgiving dinner? I don’t just mean what types of food you would on the table, although that is important. Who would you want to be there? The joy and pain of Thanksgiving comes from the same place within us, the longing to be with those we…
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Luke 14:1-14 Introduction I had a wonderful lady in a previous congregation. But she had a problem with my preaching. It was not my lack of yelling or the quality of my jokes. It was my theology. Not that she thought I was a heretic. But when I would preach from a passage that said…
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Luke 13:22-30 Introduction Make sure to stay on the “straight and narrow.” That is a popular saying that comes from the Bible, even when the person saying it doesn’t realize it. But what does that even mean? Most often when people talk about staying on the straight and narrow, they mean that a person should…
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Luke 13:18-21 Introduction This was a big summer for me. For the first time in my life, I had my own vegetable garden. I won’t claim that everything worked, but I had relatively low expectations. My goal was that I would be able to eat just one thing that I had grown from my garden.…
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Luke 13:10-17 Introduction As someone who studied marketing in school and as a pastor, I’m very interested in how churches promote themselves. Whether you are a business or a church, you only have a minute or two to get your message across and so you need to be quick and clear. A number of years…
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A sermon that looks at the blessings and woes in Luke 6:17-26 . Introduction God bless you! When are you most likely to hear that? While we should hear it a lot in church, you probably hear it more when people sneeze. This tradition goes back thousands of years. The ancient Romans would say “Jupiter preserve you”…
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A sermon based on Luke 12:35-48 Introduction What is our motivation for doing good? Do we find that we do the right thing mostly when others are watching or can we do it when no one is around? I used to work in a warehouse. While the actual work was not that fun, there were…
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A sermon based on Luke 12:49-53 Introduction Who was Jesus and what was he really like? I fear that we have created a flannel graph Jesus. What I mean by that is that we have described Jesus in a way that is attractive to children. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells…
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A sermon based on Luke 13:1-9 Introduction It was just over twenty years ago that I preached my very first sermon at a Sunday morning service. I remember two things from that experience. One was that I was so nervous that I was soaked in sweat. I believe I was shaking as well. The second thing…
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A sermon based on Luke 11:1-4 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church. Introduction When I was in the army and would be on course, we would often be taught by what we called a SME. SME stood for subject matter expert. It was acknowledged that there were certain people who had special knowledge of…
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A sermon based on Luke 10:38-42 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church. Introduction One of the hardest things about being a parent is that my children do not act the way I did when I was their age. They fight, bicker and get jealous. Not once as a child did I ever get in…
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A message based on Luke 10:1-12 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church. Introduction On January, 2, 2017, exactly one third of a religious group called, United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing died. This group, more commonly known as the Shakers, went from three people down to two people. How did the once…
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A message based on Luke 9:51-56 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church. Introduction We have all experienced rejection at some point in our life. It could have been asking someone out on a date, applying for a job or at the very least, asking something from our parents when we were children. There is…
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A message based on Luke 8:28-36 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church. Introduction Have you ever had a defining moment in your understanding of God? A moment when you saw things clearer than you had ever before? It may have been a conversion experience or something else. There was a man in the fifth century…
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