Sermon: The Unexpected Worshipers
Date: December 14
Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12
Speaker: George Veith

We often picture the Magi as three Kings or three wise men who arrive alongside the shepherds in an epic Nativity evening of worship on an O Holy Night. The story that Scripture tells us is far more complicated. For starters, the Magi arrive on the scene after the birth of Jesus— likely years after the shepherds. (Mt 2:1) Secondly, the Magi were not kings, they were Persian astronomers, astrologers, magicians who discerned an auspicious sign in the stars and made a thousand mile journey to worship the Christ child in Bethlehem. In other words, the Magi are the last people you’d expect to show up in a story about the Jewish Messiah. And yet, the appearance of the Magi tells us that those on the outside and the fringes can find themselves at the centre of what God is doing. We learn in the story of the Magi that Jesus is calling all people to himself to worship and be transformed. And when we dare do this— we discover the journey home is by “another way”(2:12).

Desired Outcome: To discover the Good News that Jesus is calling all sorts of unexpected people to come follow Him and thus journey by “another way”(2:12)”.

Sermon: A Life Interrupted
Date: December 7
Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25
Speaker: Paul Walker

Joseph was pledged to be married to Mary. As was the Jewish custom during the betrothal period, Joseph was probably away building a home and preparing for his marriage to Mary. Joseph surely had plans and dreams about what his future would look like. However, God had other plans for Joseph. Joseph’s life turned upside-down. Mary became pregnant. The child was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but Joseph did not believe this story. His future wife was pregnant and the child was not his. This was considered very scandalous, and his reputation within the community was probably at stake. Joseph first thought about divorcing Mary quietly, but then the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him what to do. He could have not believed this, ignored the dream and said “no”. However, he listened and obeyed God, and the birth of the saviour of the world, Jesus, took place. In the same way that God spoke to Joseph, God is speaking to us. Jesus is looking for those who will listen to His voice and follow Him, even if that means giving up our own plans and dreams.

Desired Outcome: To encourage our people to listen to the voice of God— even when it is costly and inconvenient.

Sermon: Bad Blood
Date: November 30
Scripture: Matthew 1:1-17
Speaker: Paul Walker

The Gospel of Matthew opens with a genealogy— or a family tree— of Jesus the Messiah. In our modern day, we tend not to care too much about genealogies and long family trees. We might even view genealogies as incidental information, but this list of Jesus’ family tree tells a story about Israel, a story about us, and even a story about God. In mentioning Jesus as “the son David, the son Abraham”(1:1) Matthew’s audience would be clued in about a story of royal lineage and covenant promises. They might expect that the Messiah and Saviour of the world would come from a long line of faultless heroes and notable dignitaries. The opposite is true of Jesus’ family record. You have the scandalous stories of Judah treating his daughter-in-law Tamar as a prostitute (1:3), Boaz being the son of the Jericho prostitute Rahab (1:5), David committing adultery with Bathsheba the wife of Uriah the Hittite (1:6), and even the recounting of exile (1:11,17). Matthew does not try to hide away the faults or sins of the past—and that is the point! Jesus willingly chose to unite himself to a broken family story in order to heal all our family stories.

Desired Outcome: To announce the good news that Jesus has joined us in our broken stories and family histories — to heal them from the inside out.

Sermon: What do you see?
Date: November 23
Scripture: Matthew 6:22-23, Matthew 9:27-31
Speaker: Paul Walker

Jesus taught us that what we see is shaped by how our eyes are trained to see the world. If our eye is bad, our sight will be corrupted. We need good eyes to see the world rightly. When we see things, we project our own biases upon what we are seeing. What we see out there is interpreted through our own personal filter. Jesus here is challenging his listeners to think about the kind of eye that they are developing. Do they have an evil eye or a good eye? Is their eye able to see what is true and good or is it tainted by greed and malice? We rarely examine the lens in which we see the world around us. And if we do —we may be shocked at how much our sight needs to be healed. But the good news is that just like the two blind men who called out for mercy and healing (Mt 9:27-31)— we too can call out to Jesus our Great Physician to heal our distorted lenses.

Desired Outcome: To challenge folks to examine if they have healthy or unhealthy eyesight— and to ask Jesus to continue to shape our vision.

Sermon: The Heart of the Matter
Date: November 16
Scripture: Matthew 6:19-24
Speaker: George Veith

One of the ingrained messages we receive in our culture is to do all you can do to get rich and stay rich. We spend a majority of our lives in the workforce earning and storing up wealth in the hope of an eventual retirement. Into our modern day consumeristic context we hear an invitation from Jesus to store up treasures that last. “Treasure” moves from things we value that are temporary— to things we value that are moral and eternal. It’s not that Jesus has a problem with using our days to work and earn. We need to pay our bills and provide for ourselves and others. (2 Thess. 3) Jesus is asking us: what do we value? Where is our treasure? We will know what it is based on what we spend our energies on and what is the driving force of our life. If we are not careful, our possessions will possess us. Instead, Jesus invites his disciples to let God’s reign take center stage.

Desired Outcome: To examine what we are giving ultimate value to in our lives —and to challenge people to store up treasures that last.

Sermon: “And When You Fast…”
Date: November 9
Scripture: Matthew 6:16-18
Speaker: Paul Walker

Jesus comes out of teaching on prayer and begins to talk about another spiritual practice. “When you fast…”. Jesus doesn’t say, “IF you fast” but rather he assumes that people will be regularly fasting. This might strike us as odd in our modern North American context that tends to disparage the idea of self-denial. What is fasting? Fasting is abstaining—often from food and water. This abstaining creates a longing for more of God and can paradoxically be a feast of spiritual encounter. Fasting can even have medical benefits. But we don’t fast for what we can get out it. Fasting is firstly an expression of worship to God that reminds us we are sustained by God alone. In this practice of fasting Jesus wants us not to be like “the hypocrites” who do things for the sake of public display and fame. The only way to fast, or pray or engage in any other spiritual activity that brings about a heavenly reward is to do it “in secret.” Whatever discomfort or pain we are experiencing is to be kept hidden as much as possible. The “reward” that we are storing up when we pray and fast in secret is simply the beauty of the character that we develop when we learn how to be singularly motivated by God’s will and thus not motivated by social applause.

Desired outcome: To challenge us to know that the spiritual life is not always about constant filling, but also includes seasons of fasting, abstaining, and disengagement —- so that we can be singularly motivated by our Heavenly Father.

Sermon: Deliver Us
Date: November 2
Scripture: Matthew 6:9-13
Speaker: Paul Walker

This last line of Jesus’ prayer reminds us of our own frailty and the reality that evil is a force from which we need deliverance. We live in a broken world and have an enemy —the satan— which tempts us to fall. God does not tempt (James 1:12-13), but God does allow us to be
tested and go through trials to refine our faith (James 1:1-3). When the satan or anyone else tempts us, they’re hoping we will fall and be more enslaved because of it. So we need to be lead in such a way that we do not fall into temptation. The heart of this petition is about God protecting and rescuing us from temptation and the work of the evil —and the evil one. To pray “deliver us from evil” is to acknowledge that we are on the front lines of a cosmic conflict (Eph
6:10-12) which we need to resist in prayer. As N.T. Wright suggests, “it is a prayer that the forces of destruction, of dehumanization, of anti-creation, of anti-redemption, may be bound and gagged, and that God’s good world may escape from being sucked down into their morass.” This petition also acknowledges that we need a Saviour to deliver us. We can’t defeat
evil on our own. And so, the prayer to “deliver us” is a prayer that trusts in the work of Jesus to deliver us out of all captivity.

Desired Outcome: To remind our people that prayer orients our steps towards being led by God— not into temptation—- but into a new way of life that delivers us from evil and the evil one.

Sermon: Forgive Us
Date: October 26, 2025
Scripture: Matthew 6:9-15
Speaker: Hans Boge Sr.

The Lord’s Prayer contains, at this point, a most unusual thing: a clause which commits the prayer to actions which back up the petition just offered. ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ Prayer and life are here locked indissolubly together. This isn’t saying that we do this in order to earn God’s forgiveness. It’s a further statement of our loyalty to Jesus and his Kingdom. Claiming this central blessing of the Kingdom only makes sense if we are living by that same central blessing ourselves. Failure to forgive one another wasn’t a matter of failing to live up to a new bit of moral teaching. It was cutting off the branch you were sitting on. The only reason for being Kingdom-people, for being Jesus’ people, was that the forgiveness of sins was happening; so if you didn’t live forgiveness, you were denying the very basis of your own new existence. On the cross, all is forgiven on God’s side. But this forgiveness only reaches us and benefits us when we acknowledge that we need to be forgiven and accept that we are forgiven, which is part of what it means to place your faith in Jesus Christ. Even as Christians, there are things we can do and attitudes we can cultivate that hinder our ability to receive God’s love and forgiveness. So this section of the Lord’s prayer reminds us of our own agency and need to willingly participate in the Kingdom arriving in our lives.

Desired Outcome: To explore the ways in which we hinder the forgiveness and love of God
entering our lives by withholding from others.