“To preach Christ is to feed the soul.”

-Martin Luther

Here is a page of some of my best sermons on all sorts of topics. Sometimes the posts are just passages from a sermon I’ve done, and other times it is the whole thing. I do my best to write them out so that other pastors can glean from them.

Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter Reflections

“The First Christmas: An Unbelievable Story about our Unbelievable God (Christmas Sermon 2018)“

A story about a virgin giving birth sound unbelievable, but we are also at the point that love and hope sound unbelievable. Perhaps this story, this unbelievable story, as the capacity to do the unbelievable.

“God With Us: A Christmas Reflection” (Dec. 2015)

This reflection includes meditating through the character of the Christmas narrative such as Zachariah and Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds, and the Magi. All of these characters reminds us that God is indeed with us.

“The Seven Final Words of Christ” (Apr. 2014): Forgive Them, Paradise, Behold Your Mother, Forsaken, Thirsty, Finished, Into Your Hands

For Good Friday 2014, I meditated through the seven final statements of Christ on the cross. Each statement of Christ draws us closer into the biblical story and the heart of Christ who saves us.

“The Martyr’s Mirror” (Apr. 2016): Introduction; St. Stephen (Part 1); St. Polycarp (Part 2); Dirk Willems (Part 3)

For Good Friday 2016, First Baptist Church meditated through martyrs of the Christian faith, using them as living texts to draw us deeper into Christ’s cross. At the end of the service, we placed an offering plate on the altar and recited Romans 12. Individuals in attended wrote down what they were ready to offer to God in order to be living sacrifices and place it in the offering.

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day Sermons

“The God Who Sees You: Hagar’s Story and Mother’s Day 2018”

For Mother’s Day 2018, I presented the story of Hagar, a lonely, imperfect, abused slave girl who God sees and incorporates into his plans. While this story comes from a day very different from our own, it reflects the timeless truth that God sees what mother’s go through and loves them.

“The Motherly Love of God: A Sermon on Mother’s Day” (May 2015)

This was a sermon I preached for Mother’s Day where I explore what it means that Scripture, while it does not refer to God as female, does describe God’s love is like a mother.

National Days (Canada Day and Remembrance Day)

“How (Not) To Be Patriotic” (Jul. 2016): Part One and Part Two

Ever wary of how the values of our culture can override our Christian faith, this sermon challenges what it means to be a Canadian citizen and a Christian. A Christian is firstly a citizen of God’s nation, the kingdom of heaven, a member of God’s people, a redeemed ethnicity in Christ. Understanding that means we live like exiles, critical of our culture, while existing in it to live out the Gospel.

“A Remembrance Day Prayer” (Nov. 2016)

As a pacifist, I am always unsure how to pray on Remembrance Day, never wanting to disrespect good soldiers but never wanting to be complicit in our culture’s legitimization of nationalism and unjust war. After much wrestling, I crafted this prayer.

Controversial Subjects

“Peeing in Peace: A Sermon on the Transgender Bathroom Laws” (May 2016)

In the wake of all the hoopla concerning the HB2 in the US and C-27 in Canada, laws allowing transgendered individuals to use the bathroom of their choosing, this sermon attempts to chart a middle course through a highly polarized subject.

“God is King: A Sermon for the American Election” (Nov. 2016)

With the controversy of perhaps the most divisive election in recent memory, I felt called to preach a sermon not denouncing one candidate or the other, but resolutely focusing the congregation to God’s kingship, our – all of us – moral failings, and the systematic failure of our political discourse, both conservative and liberal.

“It’s Complicated: Mark on Marriage, Divorce, and All the Messiness of Life and Love” (Mar. 2017)

Why does Jesus call remarriage adultery? Looking at the notoriously difficult text in Mark 10 on marriage, this sermon grapples with the complicity of the text that reflects the complexity of life and love. Refuse to admit either ends up with a cheap and unwise faith.

Ecumenical Sermons

“Journey Towards Reconciliation: Ecumenical Confessions” (Jan. 2017)

In 2017, I was invited to give the sermon at the ecumenical prayer breakfast in Sudbury, well attended with three different denominations bishops in audience. The sermon is a series of personal stories of understanding the difficult lessons of reconciling our differences in the body of Christ.

“God’s Victory Over (Our) Evil: A Sermon for the Ecumenical Unity Service 2018”

In 2018, we hosted the Garson Unity Service between the Catholic, Anglican, United and our own Baptist church. The text was Exodus 15, and the theme was liberation.

The Psalms

“Psalm 1: Which Way is Your Life Going?”

Rich in metaphor and poetry, yet offering profound prayers that direct God’s poeple in faith and obedience, we begin a series on the Psalms.

“Psalm 2: Awaiting the King”

We who live in Canada know a bit about the beauty of the monarchy. The ancient Israelite saw the monarchy, the line of David, as a source of strength and safety. But the kings kept failing, and so, this psalm looks at the human king to see past him to God’s kingdom. In the same way, we must be doing the same with all earthly powers.

“How to See a Solar Eclipse”

Psalm 19 has some of the most rich theology reflecting on creation. After we saw a solar eclipse, I figured we were all thinking about creation anyways, so might as well think about it well.

“The Psalm of Vengeance and How I Learned to Forgive My Mother’s Abuser”

Perhaps one of the most difficult passages in the whole Bible, the Psalm of Vengeneace, Psalm 137, is a painful prayer about a God that hears us no matter what we are going through.

Others

“So, What’s New About New Years?”

For New Years 2018, I ask the question, what is new in our lives? Is it possible for there to be something new (according to the teacher in Ecclesiastes)?

“God’s Way For Us To Deal With Worry”

So my wife and I found out that we are having twins. While the news if joyful, it also made me worry. What does Scripture tell us about worry? This was a sermon I was preaching to myself.

“Finding God in Despair” (Apr. 2016): God Wants To Hear Your Hurt (Part 1); Did I Do Something Wrong? (Part 2); Christ in the Darkest Places (Part 3); God’s Empathy, Our Hope (Part 4)

If a Christian struggles with depression, how do they understand God’s presence in their sadness? This sermon offers four contours to thinking about God and despair.

“Let’s Go Idol Smashing” (Dec. 2015)

This was a sermon on the nature of idolatry. It offers a comprehensive sketch on the nature of idolatry in the Bible and applies it to today.