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Barnabas: Moral Excellence – May 5, 2024

Acts 11:22-26

What is the worst thing that you could miss out on? I think to answer that question is: we have to look at what we were made for! I believe the Bible shows us that we were made for a relationship with God that informs all our relationships with others, and we were made to join him in the work that He has done and is doing and will do. I just think of the Genesis story where God creatively and wonderfully made everything from nothing and then He made humans and told them to do what He just did, turn raw material and chaos into beauty and order. We’re made to lovingly join him in his work and represent him to the rest of the world.

But the tragic thing is, even though everyone has access to this extremely valuable calling, we often forget about it and miss out on it. This will probably be what we’ll regret most looking back.

See, God is always always working in and around and through our lives, every single day. But because His ways are not always our ways, we won’t see it if we’re not intentional. And if we’re not intentional about it, we could be missing out on the greatest thing happening in our lives and not even know it.

And so how do we avoid missing out on all this?

Or in other words, how do we join God in his work?

We’re zoning in on Barnabas in this series, a man described as good, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and we’re using him as a model for how we can join God in His work! And this is what we see from him and what we’ll spend the rest of our time focusing on.

How do we join God in his work? We focus on:

  1. Enjoyment
  2. Encouragement
  3. Empowerment

Barnabas: Moral Excellence – April 28, 2024

Acts 9:19b-28

A few years back, social psychologist, Jean Twenge published a detailed study on the mental state of today’s teenagers and college students in a book called iGen. She found a rapid rise in depression and anxiety in young people. Twenge believes that the biggest reason for this problem is the rise of smart phones and social media.

People are connected by the internet, yet they feel alone. People are constantly comparing how they look and what they have. They see people doing fun activities without them and they feel left out.

Twenge writes, “By 2016, roughly one out of every five girls reported symptoms that met the criteria for having experienced a major depressive episode in the previous year. The rate for boys went up, too, but more slowly (from 4.5% in 2011 to 6.4% in 2016).” Very sad news!

However, one interesting part of her research is that she found five activities that are linked to lower rates of depression: sports and other forms of exercise, attending religious services, reading books, in-person social interactions, and doing homework.

Her research implies that churches like ours can make a significant difference in the lives of young people. So, my main question today is: how can we help people who feel alone? Our passage today is from Acts 9:26-28.

Our new sermon series is on Barnabas, who was a difference maker, and we can learn two things from him:

  1. We discern what God is doing
  2. We nurture what God is doing

Barnabas: Moral Excellence – April 21, 2024

“When Filled with the Holy Spirit”

Acts 4:29-37

When it comes to spiritual things there are all kinds of unspoken rules and things going on behind the scenes. And if we understand how it all works, we can have the best experience possible. We’ll know what to expect, and we’ll know what to aim for, and we’ll know if we’re on the right track or not.

So my big question today is: what should we expect if we’re following Jesus properly? My big idea today is: We should expect God’s power.

  1. We should expect God’s power outside the church
  2. We should expect God’s power inside the church.

That’s what our Bible story is about today. Let’s read now from the book of Acts 4:29-37. This is the beginning of our new series which follows a guy named Barnabas. the context for this story is that the early Christians were under threat by the same people who had killed Jesus. So the Christians were praying because they were in trouble. And now we’re going to eavesdrop on their prayer.

The Life and Times of Samuel – April 14, 2024

“Samuel Anoints David as the Next King”

Samuel 16:1-13

Everyone has a celebrity that they love- who is your favorite celebrity? Why do you love them? Is it because they’re pretty and attractive? Is it because they’re successful and rich? Is it their talent? It matters what we admire, because we are becoming like the things we admire.

My big question today: what is the most important thing about a person? Our Bible passage today tell us that the most important thing is character. Talent is secondary but it’s the heart that is most important.

Easter – March 31, 2024

“The Empty Tomb”

Mark 16:1-8

We are always being invited to something. As you watch youtube ads or see other people wearing certain brands or following trends, those are invitations to buy in. To say yes. To follow. Some invitations are great. And some are meant to be turned down. And we have to be really careful with our responses to these invitations because every yes, is a no to a million other things.

But the Bible talks about an invitation that is so great, it’s worth dropping everything to respond to. What is this greatest invitation? In this week’s verse, we see that there are three parts to this invitation:

  1. To see the real Jesus
  2. To see the real us
  3. To see our real life/purpose

The Life and Times of Samuel – March 24, 2024

“Spirit-filled Saul”

1 Samuel 11:1-15

Maybe we see something a type of injusticec on the news, and it infuriates you. But sometimes you don’t act on it because you feel like you don’t have power. But as Christians, we too have something powerful inside of us- a source of power called the Holy Spirit, God himself living in us.

Our Bible story today is about what happens when the Holy Spirit moves a person and takes control of their heart. We see that the Holy Spirit makes us angry at evil and dedicated to God’s glory.

The Life and Times of Samuel – March 17, 2024

“The ark of the LORD is captured and returned”

1 Samuel 6:1-12

It’s normal for young Christians to grow up going to church and believing whatever the pastors say. And we can be really passionate about Jesus, and we can spend a lot of time doing church stuff.

But then our faith gets challenged. We’ll be challenged by friends or culture or professors, or tragedy, or the stress of life. And in those moments, we actually need a reason to keep believing in God. And it really helps if we know where to find evidence.

So, my big question today is: How does God make himself known? My big idea today is that God makes himself known, to all of us, with extraordinary power and extraordinary kindness. My goal today is to show you this idea in our Bible story, and we’ll see that we are actually quite similar to the characters in the Bible story.

The Life and Times of Samuel – March 10, 2024

“The Calling of Samuel”

1 Samuel 3

For some of us, we don’t know what it means to “hear God” because God doesn’t normally speak audibly, yet the Bible tells us we are meant to know and recognize his voice.

John 10:27 tells us, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

So, we know that it should be normal for followers of Jesus to listen to his voice. But how does this happen? How does this work? So, my big question today is: How do we listen to God’s voice? 

The Life and Times of Samuel – March 3, 2024

“Eli’s wicked sons”

1 Samuel 2:12-26

We are all in the process of becoming someone. Whether intentional or not, We are all in the process of becoming someone. At every single moment of your life, every decision and action you make or don’t make is an investment towards a future version of you. Hitting that snooze button in the morning. Reading everyday. Sneaking onto the transit without paying. Working out 3 times a week.

All these things shape you but it does so in a slow compounding way that you don’t really notice until one day, you realize, this is just who you became and you can’t pinpoint how you got here! And that’s a bit scary! Because I live a lot of my life on autopilot which means I’m probably becoming someone I don’t want to be.

The good news is that we’re not these helpless puppets that have no say in the way we’re formed. God has given us a lot of freedom to shape who we become 5 years from now, 10 years. 50 years. But where do we start?

That’s our focus today.

How do we grow well? In all ways, spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, financial even. How do we become Christians mature in Christ?

The answer I want to show you today is that to grow well, we need to honour God above all else, in order to:

  1. Keep ourselves from becoming scoundrels
  2. Keep others from becoming scoundrels