We’re all digging for something we believe will bring real change—success, security, clarity, control. In Proverbs 2, God shows us where true change is actually found: in seeking his wisdom with intentionality and trust.
This week's message explores the process, promise, and protection of wisdom—and why passivity and complacency quietly keep us from it. If you’re longing for real, lasting change, this sermon invites you to start digging in the right place.
Every one of us is on a journey (we are walking through life in a certain direction). You’re always moving somewhere—even when you feel stuck. And every decision you make is quietly steering you toward a destination.Proverbs exists because God knows something about all of us and that is that most of the damage in our lives doesn’t come from one catastrophic moment. It comes from walking off the path that God has designed for our life.The question isn’t whether you’re on a journey—you are. The question is whether the path you’re on is leading you toward life…or slowly away from it.
We live in an unprecedented moment of access to God's Word. Bible apps, podcasts, sermons, and countless resources are at our fingertips. Yet a 2023 report reveals that 63% of Canadian Christians who own a Bible "never or hardly ever" read it. Despite all our access, we're spiritually starving. What's going wrong?
Jesus' parable of the sower in Matthew 13:3-23 reveals the answer: the problem isn't our schedules or lack of resources—it's the condition of our hearts. Through four types of soil, Jesus shows us that transformation doesn't come from more information but from cultivating an understanding heart.
As we close 2025 and step into 2026, discover how to move from shallow hearing to deep understanding that bears fruit.—DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:1. Identifying Your Soil
2. Selective Hearing
3. What Hardened Your Heart?
4. Pride vs. Humility
5. Cultivating an Understanding Heart in 2026
We all live hopeful because all of us long for change. Change in the violence we see around the world, change in our communities, change in the strife in our families, change in our child’s waywardness, change in our own struggles.
In fact, you cannot live without hope. The Harvard School of medicine, "Hope is an essential component of our well-being…It is an essential factor for developing both maturity and resilience."
Not only is hope a vital piece to our humanity BUT we all hope in something. The good news from Luke 2 is that Jesus brings hope to those who are hopeful.
In Luke 2 we have the greatest baby announcement in the history of humanity that brings with it the greatest news that you and I could ever hear. God announces through an entire heavenly host of angels that He is sending His One and only Son — Jesus: The promised Savior of the world.
And as a result — Jesus is coming to bring peace. Contained in that one line is the most important thing that you could ever know and truly believe. Jesus came to bring the outsider in. This is the peace that Jesus came to bring and it’s the type of peace that not only do we really need, it's the type of peace that we genuinely long for.
There are moments in life when the light finally breaks through—when what was confusing becomes clear, when what felt dark begins to dawn with hope. Scripture tells us that when God moves, His people often respond in song. That is exactly what happens with Zechariah. After months of silence, he is filled with the Holy Spirit and bursts into a prophetic song declaring that God has come to shine His light into a dark world.In this Spirit-inspired song, Zechariah proclaims that the coming Messiah brings salvation—God’s long-promised rescue. He reminds us that this salvation leads to worship, for we are redeemed to serve God without fear. He announces that his own son, John, is God’s chosen instrument, the forerunner who will prepare the way for the Lord. And he ends by celebrating the profound peace that God’s light brings, guiding our feet out of darkness and into the way of peace.This Advent season, as we continue through the Songs of Luke, Zechariah’s song invites us to behold the One whose light brings a plan, a purpose, a prophet, and peace. Jesus has come—and the dawn has broken.
If you’ve ever observed little kids when they get excited you realize that they will easily and spontaneously burst into song. Whether a birthday party is around the corner, a friend is coming to play, or a long-awaited Christmas present is being unwrapped, their joy overflows in a made-up melody.From the beginning of time, song has been a powerful way to express emotion, tell a story, and stir our memory. Songs don’t merely resonate with us intellectually but they have the ability to connect with us at a deep soul level.This Advent season, we are going to look at four songs from the book of Luke. The first of those songs is Mary’s, which shows us that Jesus came to bring us true joy.
The end of the book of Acts is not a conclusion, it's an invitation. It’s a “to be continued” and the way that this continues is through you and me. Yes, the book of Acts might be finished but the mission assigned to the church and to every follower of Jesus is not. “To be continued” allows us to enter into the story… not simply as spectators of things that happened back then but of God’s mission that we participate in NOW.What Paul began here in Acts we continue as we fulfill the mission of God in our life. This is what it means when we talk about living a “sent” life.
Paul’s missionary journeys have come to an end, and the Spirit of God is leading him back to Jerusalem where he will face certain opposition and danger. Along this journey, Paul faces the reaction and concern of other disciples to this news, urging him not to go to Jerusalem. But Paul is determined to go in order that he might give, obey, and trust God’s purpose and plan for his life.Paul’s example is a reminder that the Christian life is a call to risk—exposing ourselves to the possibility of great loss or injury for a greater reward. This is not to say we must be reckless, but to be ready to give, obey, and trust, regardless what we might lose, because in the Gospel, our reward is secure and enough.
In the book of Acts, it is often that we see Paul the evangelist, but in Acts 20:17-38, we catch a glimpse of Paul the pastor. In his farewell address to the elders in the church at Ephesus, Paul recounts his ministry among them, what he sees as the road ahead for him and for their ongoing ministry in caring for Jesus’ church. From this we receive a powerful description of what leadership looks like in the church, particularly in pastoral ministry. Pastors (and other leaders in the church) are to be men of character and caring concern; committing the people in their charge to God for growth. The truth is–pastors are simply followers who are leading the way. This is how the Gospel impacts a dark world, not by man’s strength, but by God’s Spirit – visible, valuable, and vital in and for His people.
John Calvin said this about our hearts: “Man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols." All of us on a daily basis have a propensity to allow something or someone to rule our heart and thus our life that is not God. Whatever that thing is, the Bible says it is an idol. In fact, the reason you struggle with anger towards your wife and kids or making poor financial decisions or a constant sense of disappointment and shame is because there is some idol (or idols) that is ruling your heart. This is why Acts 19 is very important for us to understand.
We’ve all spent time leafing through those all yearbooks from middle and high school. The yearbook is full of awkward pictures of a bunch of ordinary teenagers doing a bunch of ordinary high school stuff. But if you think about a yearbook really it’s meant to be a snapshot of that entire year all put together in one book. That’s what Acts 18 is. It is the first yearbook for the church that would be started in the city of Corinth. In Acts 18, we get snapshots of ordinary people that God used to start one of the first churches in history. Everyday people living out God’s plan for their lives.
When we think of changing the world our home is probably not the place that we go to in our minds right away. And yet in Deuteronomy 6 the Bible says the home is the most strategic and God-given place we have been given to change the world. In Deuteronomy 6 we get one of the most famous “speeches” that God gave to his people. What’s striking is that it's all about raising children. In God’s instruction for how to succeed in the promised land he chooses to have a pointed discussion around parenting.
Unless your life is built upon Jesus we are setting ourselves up for failure. The truth is we live in a world where those we live with, work with, and do life with have built a life upon something other than God. And so Acts 17 is critical because it’s going to show us how to meaningfully and effectively engage those people in our life. It’s also a warning to those of us who are not followers of Jesus.
In this passage Paul and Silas had been sent to prison in Philippi where we find them praying and singing hymns at midnight. Strange, considering the circumstances. But it’s at that very hour where their imprisonment leads to the opportunity to share the gospel with those there with them.This passage—a living parable—reminds us that the gospel of Jesus is never imprisoned, that there are times where God sends us into trials so we can have an audience with someone we normally wouldn’t, that prayer and worship shake things up and that prison times shouldn’t keep us from worship and prayer and finally, the main point, there is a prison worse than prison and Jesus came to free us from it.
There are just some things in life we were never meant to do by ourselves. The Christian life is one of these things. As we live a life following Jesus, we must invite others to (as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:1) “follow [us] as [we] follow Christ”. This is how the mission of God is both strengthened and multiplies throughout the church in the world. The example of Paul and Timothy in Acts 16:1-5 helps us to take into consideration our own discipling relationships and how they “help others encounter Jesus and follow His way.” (The mission of Port City Church.)
At the end of Acts 15 we see the band breaking up. The Apostle Paul and his missionary sidekick and friend Barnabbas have a major disagreement - one that sends them in different directions. Here’s what we learn from this little section at the end of this important chapter: even mature believers can have intense conflicts. Everyone deals with conflict. The gospel offers a radically counter-cultural way of dealing with conflict.
Throughout church history what we see is that the church is always prone to drifting away from this core truth of the Christian faith. Similar to a car that is severely out of alignment, If we don’t keep our hands on the wheel of the true gospel message we will as a church begin to drift off the road. And here’s the other thing…most of if not all of the issues, problems, frustrations that people have with the church stem from drifting away from the gospel. So if the church is throughout history prone to drift and if those drifts are the root of all of our church problems…Acts 15 becomes an incredibly important text for us.
The Book of Acts is God’s invitation to be a part of his world-changing mission. And who doesn’t want to change the world? Every single one of us senses there’s some bigger purpose we ought to be a part of, and we genuinely want to know what it is. We want to make a difference in the world; we want to do something with our lives that matters. The book of Acts shows us that your life is meant to be lived for so much more with a much greater purpose.
There are lots of things in this world that people don’t agree on, but one thing that is universally accepted is that that life is hard. We face health challenges, financial difficulties, relationship problems, and a variety of other hardships and personal difficulties.
Every one of us needs real hope to help us weather these storms of life. In Psalm 71, the psalmist shows us what it looks like to live with true hope in the midst of great trouble and much uncertainty. We learn that true hope is a confident expectation; not just wishful thinking. And we find that God is the only true and lasting hope available to us in every circumstance and season of life.