Shows
Trinity FellowshipMatthew 20:29-34 - "Healing of the Blind Men"The natural state of affairs is for us to be blind to the things of the Lord. The blindness leaves us idle, unproductive, and unable to help ourselves. While we are all brought into the world in this condition, many never see their need, and end up moving into deeper and deeper levels of self-deception and self-destruction. To come to terms with the reality is itself a gift from God. The Church Father Augustine once noted that "man does not obtain grace by freedom, but obtains freedom by grace". Like the blind men, we must come to the Son of...
2024-06-0941 min2024-04-2130 min2024-04-1438 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 18:21-35 - "Forgiven Means Forgiving"Forgiveness is "A commitment by the offended to pardon graciously the repentant from moral liability, and to be reconciled to that person." When we are reminded of the overwhelming, impossible, and infinite debt that God has pardoned for us, the only fitting response is for us to stand ready to forgive others and be reconciled to them when they repent of their sins against us. Even if they don't come, and reconciliation isn't possible, we must still put aside all bitterness. Hanging on to bitterness, demanding justice for others after we have been shown mercy, and refusing to take back...
2024-04-141h 24Trinity FellowshipMatthew 18:15-20 - "Church Discipline"Christ has been preaching about His concern for the little ones in Matthew 18. He has just told us how the Shepherd is so concerned for one straying sheep that He will leave the ninety-nine to go pursue it. That is what church discipline is – the Shepherd's heart to correct and restore the straying one. God's way of achieving restoration runs contrary to the sentimental and therapeutic sensibilities of our age. But it is Christ, not man, who is building His church, so we must follow the instructions we are given instead of presume to create our own. We have seen a...
2024-04-0849 min2024-04-0740 minTrinity FellowshipRomans 5:12-21 - "Cursed In Adam, Alive In Christ" (Easter Sunday)In this passage , Paul uses an analogy between Adam and Christ but it is an analogy of contrast. The only parallel is both men were federal heads, or representatives for the human race. In this, Adam was a type of Christ. Adam failed in his obedience, leaving his posterity under the curse of death. Thankfully , Christ broke the curse of death when he fulfilled complete obedience including his shed blood for our sin. Therefore, all who put their trust in him and his redemptive work, have conquered death, and have victory over death through him.
2024-03-3153 min2024-03-2935 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 18:10-14 - "The Lost Sheep"We've been reminded today that we are all little ones in God's pasture. We are all there by grace and not by merit. There is no room for pride or vanity among the people of God, as even the angels and their mission remind us. The sheep may struggle and go astray, which is why shepherds are given to pursue and bring back. Part of their work involves temporarily leaving the ninety nine to pursue the one, but the mission is always rescue and restoration. We are all sheep in God's pasture, and many of us are also shepherds in...
2024-03-2441 min2024-03-2436 min2024-03-1740 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 18:7-9 - "Be Killing Sin or Sin Will be Killing You"Christ has forced us to face the woe of a fallen world, weighed down by the curse of sin. He pronounces woe not just to the world generally, but to each individual who refuses to fight temptation. We are better off having eyes, hands, and feet cut off than being thrown into the eternal fire of hell. The old covenant cutting ceremonies pointed God's people to this reality, and the new covenant fulfillment delivers the substance to us. If we are in Christ, the old members have been cut off. If we are in Christ, we are a new creation...
2024-03-1748 minTrinity FellowshipSunday School - Missions ReportsMissionary updates from Gerald & Bev Huebner, working with camp ministry in the Ukraine, and Jeremy & Jacqui Warne, church planting in Italy.
2024-03-1046 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 18:1-6 - "Like A Child"The kingdom of God is here already, but not yet fully. Christ has given more instruction on how His kingdom is to be made increasingly visible in the lives of His people. In His kingdom, the way to dominion is through suffering, the way up is down, and the way to greatness is through humility. We must become like children to live in this kingdom – trusting, dependant, filled with awe and wonder, teachable, and humble. These traits are the fruits of repentance that demonstrate that we have bent the knee to the King and are fit to live in His ki...
2024-03-1052 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 17:22-27 - "The Supremacy of the Son"The gospel writers were inspired to reveal to us the Son of Man that was prophesied in Daniel 7. This morning's passage is a reminder that while He took on flesh and became a man, He retained His divinity and supremacy over all things. No earthly power has authority over Him. Yet, for the sake of the coming kingdom, He was slow to cause unnecessary stumbling blocks as neither should we. Most importantly we must remember the gospel as our foundation. Just as He paid the debt for Peter that He did not owe, His shed blood has paid the ransom...
2024-03-0334 min2024-03-0340 minTrinity FellowshipRiley Toews - Ask a Pastor - The Law of GodMatt was a guest on Riley Toews's "Ask a Pastor" podcast to discuss the abiding validity of God's law. Originally aired January 17, 2023.
2024-02-261h 00Trinity FellowshipRiley Toews - Ask a Pastor - Classical Christian EducationMatt was a guest on Riley Toews's "Ask a Pastor" podcast to discuss education and the classical Christian option.
2024-02-2646 min2024-02-2549 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 17:14-21 - "The Demon-Possessed Boy"In the story of the demon-possessed boy, we see the results of the fall coming into contact with the ministry of Christ's disciples. This is an early encounter in the long war for the cosmos. This war continues today, and so we can no doubt relate to the experience of these men as they encountered failure. Our faith is likewise too weak, too distracted, too misguided, too subject to doubts and to the accusations of those who oppose us. We remain a people in desperate need of the headship of Christ. Rather than humiliating us, He takes our failures and...
2024-02-2543 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 16:28-17:13 - "The Transfiguration"Peter, James, and John receive the honour of being eyewitnesses to one of the most glorious events in human history. Together, with Moses and Elijah, they have the profound and long anticipated blessing of seeing God the Son as He truly is, with unveiled faces, in all His refulgent glory. Towards the end of his life, Peter looks back to this day and tells us that what we have now is even better than that eyewitness experience was (2 Peter 1:16-21). The dissonance and tension and waiting of the ancients has found its resolution in Jesus Christ. He uses this mountain...
2024-02-1859 min2024-02-1843 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 16:21-28 - "The High Cost of Winning""But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, "Yet...
2024-02-1142 minTrinity FellowshipActs 2:29-41 - "The Promise is for You" (Baptism Sunday)Baptism is a symbol. It isn't magic. It's not superstitious. But it is real. It is a potent sign and seal in which God truly ministers to us. In baptism, we have a physical reminder of God's promises that death is followed by resurrection, that repentance is completed with faith, and that the old man is replaced by the new man. In our baptism, we aren't so much giving something to God as we are receiving something from Him. He seals us as we enter His kingdom and gives us His name as we are adopted into His family. Our...
2024-02-0423 min2024-02-0441 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 16:13-20 - "I Will Build My Church"We have found ourselves in a time where the consequences of ideas are reaching their logical conclusions. The God-forsaken unbelieving philosophies of the 1920s, 1940s, and 1960s are no longer constrained by outwardly Christian customs. This means our age is lost. Unbelieving ideas are attempting to create a chaotic hellscape on earth. Our age is looking for a compelling story to explain history and fill it with meaning. There are thousands of idolatrous stories, and one true one. We have a God-Man who came to overcome and redeem. He came to repair the ruins, to restore paradise, to remarry heaven...
2024-01-281h 002024-01-2839 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 16:5-12 - "Beware of the Leaven"Christ's warning of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees gives us a clear picture of the dangers of false teaching. Like leaven that permeates and transforms a loaf, so too false doctrine can infiltrate and destroy the faith of those who lose their focus on Christ and his Word. The religious leaders in Jesus' day had done just that, allowing their own ideas and fleshly desires to blind them to the true meaning of the Scriptures. There was good news coming! Yet their hard hearts blinded their eyes to it. In contrast to the Pharisees and Sadducees whose focus...
2024-01-2145 min2024-01-2135 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 16:1-4 - "The Sign of Jonah Repeated"Every detail of Christ's activity, miracles, and teaching are interwoven so as to tell one big story. The story of the old covenant terminates into Christ, and this is the story that the Pharisees and Sadducees are unable to see, no matter how close it gets to them. The Pharisees were so consumed with reading sentences that they missed the plot. The Sadducees were so consumed with neglecting sentences that they missed the plot. But our God is a story telling God, and so our charge as His people is to learn how stories work. God, in Christ is rebuilding...
2024-01-1451 min2024-01-1440 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 15:29-39 - "The Feeding of the Four Thousand"Christ is the head of a new humanity. He is knitting together a kingdom of priests from all the corners of the earth. When the scribes and Pharisees reject what Christ is offering, He goes to the obscure corners to bring outsiders in. What started as a single Canaanite woman happy like a dog for crumbs has become a small city being fed a full meal, equal to that of the children. Christ starts with the lost sheep of Israel, but now He is bringing in outsiders as well. There is no end to Christ's mercy, so the charge is...
2024-01-0740 min2024-01-0740 min2023-12-3150 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 15:21-28 - "The Faith of the Canaanite Woman"The Canaanite woman is a glorious example of what humility and perseverance look like when they are both present in the same person. This woman has been blessed with the insight to see past the physical display of Christ's miracles and into their meaning. She sees that flour and oil and bread and crumbs have to do with God's abundant provision and Fatherly care for those who are His. This Fatherly providence is so detailed that it is even concerned with placing this woman at the feet of Jesus in the same place where another woman was placed at the...
2023-12-3147 min2023-12-2527 minTrinity FellowshipLuke 3:23-38 - "Long Expected Jesus: The Family Tree"The Saviour is almost here, so go home rejoicing and to rejoice. Enjoy food, gifts, and laughter with family and friends. And keep in mind what the Narnian Lion, Aslan, once said: "You do not look as happy as I intend you to be." All the joy to be found in baking, stocking stuffers, the laughter at old stories, and all the festivity are the first echoes of the rolling thunderous Joy which Christ, the Word made flesh, has ushered into this world. Now go forth to rejoice in the great love which God your Father has lavished upon you...
2023-12-2447 min2023-12-231h 16Trinity FellowshipMatthew 15:1-20 - "Scripture & Tradition"What starts as an aggressive examination of Jesus quickly turns into a trial of the emptiness of man-made religion. Not only has Jesus easily acquitted Himself of all wrong, but He has turned the tables and concluded a devastating case against the Pharisees. The standard of righteousness is not our own rules and ideas, no matter how new and exciting and compelling they seem, but the unchanging Word of God. The actual Law of God has weighed the human heart and found it wanting. The excrement that comes out of our hearts if far more putrid than the excrement produced...
2023-12-1754 min2023-12-1743 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 14:22-36 - "Peter Walks on Water"God's people have had to walk through many struggles. In today's text we've seen another retelling of a familiar story in which God gives His people rest and bread, then sends them away before their enemies get to them. It has been said that you know who someone's God is by seeing who they cry out to when life gets hard. The one you expect to deliver you in your day of testing is your god – for some this is their bank account. For others it is the government. For others it is their intelligence. It could be a friend or...
2023-12-1046 min2023-12-1047 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 14:13-21 - "The Feeding of the Five Thousand"Providence is the word we use to describe how God governs, attends to, watches over, and cares for His creation. When Jesus sees that the shepherds have left the sheep to fend for themselves, He has pity and compassion on them. He finds us lost, vulnerable, and hungry, but sees to it that we are gathered in, protected, and well-fed. He calls and equips under-shepherds to carry out His work, but everything ultimately comes from His hand. When we are fed by Jesus, our supply never runs out. In His ministry as the great shepherd, Christ shows us that He...
2023-12-0339 min2023-12-0339 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 14:1-12 - "Church, State, and a Clean Conscience"The account of John the Baptist's beheading lays out the most obvious of contrasts. John is right with God and as a result has a peace and a confidence that allows him to be bold and clear even when calling the most powerful men to repentance. Herod and his household are not right with God and as a result, they have an unstable and double-minded spirit that leads to cowardice and panic. God made both church and state to function alongside and in harmony with each other, both under His sovereign authority. In order for us to enjoy the blessing...
2023-11-2656 min2023-11-2639 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 13:44-58 - "The Kingdom's Worth"Today we conclude the third extended teaching section in the gospel of Matthew. Jesus teaches in parables in order to conceal truth to those who have not been given understanding, but to reveal truth to those who have. In our text today Jesus delivers four short parables in private to his disciples. From the first two we learn of the exceedingly great worth of the kingdom, the pursuit of which is indeed worth every sacrifice. This is supplemented with a view towards the final judgment, when the righteous and the wicked will be separated. And having been given this understanding...
2023-11-1949 min2023-11-1932 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 13:31-35 - "The Parables of the Mustard Seed & The Leaven"The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of all connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations, but also all of human thought. The Christian cannot therefore be indifferent to any branch of earnest human endeavor. It must all be brought into some relation to the gospel. It must be studied either in order to be demonstrated false or else in order to be made useful to the kingdom of God. The kingdom must be advanced not merely extensively, but also intensively. The church must not only...
2023-11-1254 min2023-11-1244 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 13:24-30; 36-43 - "The Parable of the Weeds"Christ's kingdom parables frequently encourage us to both patience in adversity and confidence over it. The patience and the confidence are both the fruit of trusting in Christ's settled victory over all things and all history. Imposters, false teachers, ungodly people, the spiritually indifferent, and antichrist ideas are all growing alongside and among the crop of God's kingdom. We must ever be on guard, honing our discernment according to the Word of God so that we will tell the true from the false in due time. As we wait for the fruit to give evidence of the root, we have...
2023-11-0542 min2023-11-0544 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 13:1-23 - "The Parable of the Sower"The parables not only illustrate, but perform. They are a prophetic comment on the state of affairs, and this Parable of the Sower actively brings about the very things of which it speaks. Parables make the truth memorable for those with spiritual ears, and they harden and confuse and conceal for those who remain in their sin. Parables sort the wheat from the chaff; the sheep from the goats, and this is exactly what Christ says they are meant to do. The preaching of the gospel sorts people out as it is designed to do. Because God is sovereign in...
2023-10-2958 minTrinity FellowshipThe English Reformation (Reformation Sunday)October 31, 1517 is known as the day in which the Protestant Reformation was born. Today we surveyed the Reformation after the time of Luther, and trace the stream through Calvin into the English Reformation. In this survey, we see the significance of the Church of England, and the roots of both Presbyterianism and the Reformed Baptist churches.
2023-10-2946 min2023-10-2227 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 12:43-50 - "The Parable of the Empty House"We have been shown clearly that moral reform apart from Christ sets us up for a dangerous deception that makes us worse off than we started. External change leaves us empty and vulnerable to the enemy. The only way to achieve victory in the long war on sin is to expel it with the superior power of affection for Christ. Christian, if Christ has touched you, then you have eyes to see and a mouth to speak. The glory of the Lord has filled you to overflowing and you are able to see sin for the irrational corruption that it...
2023-10-2248 min2023-10-1550 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 12:38-42 - "The Sign of Jonah"Christ's ongoing conflict with the Pharisees keeps inching towards its climax. Christ refuses to turn His miracles into a circus act, and so rather than respond to the request for yet another sign, He turns and exposes their unbelief. These men are the guardians of the Scriptures and yet they refuse to see the Christ of those Scriptures. Jesus points to Himself in the account of Jonah and Solomon, and contrasts the high handed unbelief of these insider Pharisees with the repentant faith of those outsider converts. So today it is for us – Christless conservatism cannot save. Trying to be ma...
2023-10-1550 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 12:33-37 - "Root and Fruit"Christ's words this morning present a strong challenge to those who would separate root and fruit, or head and heart. Christ is not the least bit interested in treating the wounds of His people lightly, or of pretending like there is peace when there is no peace. Jesus Christ is interested in the whole man, and this means that His gospel brings peace to the whole man. In contrast to the Pharisees who concern themselves with externals and empty words, Christ starts at the core. Christ conquers from inside out. By addressing the root, the fruit is able to come...
2023-10-0853 min2023-10-0823 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 12:22-32 - "Gathering or Scattering"In today's text we have seen the intrusion of Christ's kingdom into history. Christ is working in the power of the Spirit and is confronting us with a very clear choice. There are only two ways of living. Either, we join Christ's mission of plundering Satan's goods and gathering the remnants of his kingdom into Christ's, or we actively oppose Christ by scattering and wasting. The way we relate to Christ echoes into eternity. Right now counts forever. We either enter into His everlasting rest or we are confined to an eternity of futility where we will toil in agony...
2023-10-0144 min2023-10-0152 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 12:15-21 - "All According to Plan"In our text today, Matthew strategically places a passage from Isaiah 42:1-4 in between opposition and rejection. The opposition Jesus faced and his impending rejection as Messiah by the Jewish leadership runs counter to the expectations most Jews had of the Messiah and his ministry. But Matthew wants to make clear to his primarily Jewish audience that this is all according to plan. Isaiah had prophesied centuries earlier, describing what the Servant of the Lord would be like and what he would do. He would not be quarrelsome or forcefully assert himself, instead he would care for the broken and...
2023-09-241h 012023-09-2446 min2023-09-1747 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 12:1-14 - "Entering Sabbath Rest"From the beginning, the Sabbath has been a marker to separate one week from another. God performs His creative work for six days and then enters into His rest, and this sets up the pattern for all of human history afterwards. In the days of promise under the old covenant, the people of God toiled in anticipation of future rest. In the new covenant, Christ becomes the new Adam in the new garden and initiates the new creation with His resurrection on the first day of the week. The day has moved but so far from destroying the old principles...
2023-09-1755 min2023-09-1054 minTrinity FellowshipPsalm 12 - "Living in Negative World"We live in an age where the wicked seem to prosper. Ungodliness is regarded as harmless, or even as good, while righteousness is mocked and maligned. We see that in many cases, we are governed by those who have no fear of the Lord, and are often even openly at war against Him. Ours is an age of flattery, narcissism, self-love, and lies. Yet none of this is particularly new or unique. This is how things always are when God prepares to rise up and bring safety to His people. Our charge this week is to take God at His...
2023-09-1053 min2023-09-0347 minTrinity FellowshipPsalm 15 - "Who Can Dwell With God?"In order to dwell with God there are specific requirements. Psalm 15 provides a list of characteristics that would be found in a person qualified to be in the presence of the Lord. It covers many aspects of life including one's conduct, conversation, commitments, constancy, and conscience; all of which we fall short of on a regular basis and thus are disqualified from communing with God. Yet if you are in Christ, these requirements have been fulfilled in Him. Through His work we can approach God and look forward to dwelling in heaven one day. If you are living in the...
2023-09-0335 min2023-08-2748 minTrinity FellowshipPsalm 14 - "Take Refuge in the Lord"You are to live in the full realization that you are accountable to God, so do not continue to live in sin and treat salvation as a license to do what ever you want. Ask God for wisdom because He will give it to those who ask (James 1:5). With that, live in the joy of your salvation knowing that if you repented and put your trust in Christ, that you may take refuge in the creator of the universe, to whom we are all accountable to. Go to God with your anxieties like the psalmist does, and take shelter in...
2023-08-2741 minTrinity FellowshipPsalm 13 - "Where is God When We Need Him Most?"David was a man after Gods heart yet he suffered immensely. Questions of "why?" and "how long?" are common in his prayers. Many experience the feeling of pain when abandoned by others but the pinnacle of darkness is to feel abandoned by God. In spite of this David endured the darkness and found the resolve acknowledge God"s sovereign goodness. We can only claim this hope through the gospel. Since Christ was abandoned and accursed on our behalf , even through the darkness, we to can find joy and strength in his saving work.
2023-08-2050 min2023-08-2051 minTrinity FellowshipPsalm 46 - "Sit Down and Be Quiet"The book of Psalms is a royal hymnbook that instructs us in the law of the Lord and tells us of his anointed king by working to move the truth of God from our heads to our hearts. That we would not just know the truth, but love and treasure it also. Psalm 46 does just that as it is an affirmation of faith that God is a refuge, a fortress for his covenant people. He is our remedy for fear in the midst of a tumultuous world, not just in general hardships, but specifically amidst the nations' rebellion against God...
2023-08-1355 min2023-08-1355 min2023-08-0653 minTrinity FellowshipPsalm 11 - "The Lord is in His Holy Temple"a. David took his refuge in the Lord, as we all should. God is the creator and sustainer of all things. All things are under His providential rule and reign, and He has committed Himself to the redemption of His fallen creation. This means we have nothing to fear. The temptation to be anxious, to panic, and to fear means we often look for a way of escape instead of for a way to advance. David resisted the short-sighted counsel of his friends, and we need to likewise resist the voices and urges which would have us take the easy...
2023-08-0639 minTrinity FellowshipEphesians 5:22-6:4 - "A House for My Name: The Glory of Family"Marriage and family are key pieces of the story that God is telling in His cosmos. The one flesh union between a man as covenant head and a woman who is building her home ideally pictures Christ as the true and perfect covenant head, building His kingdom through the work of His bride, the church. The union is close, intimate, life-giving, and fruitful. Christian childrearing is a means of fruitfulness, dominion, and fulfilling the Great Commission no differently than evangelism and missions, and we need to treat it with the same spiritual weight. Glory is always heavy, and this is...
2023-07-301h 032023-07-3055 minTrinity FellowshipBiblical Masculinity and Femininity Q & ASunday School discussion dedicated to the sermon series on biblical masculinity and femininity.
2023-07-2357 minTrinity FellowshipGenesis 2:18-25 - "A House for My Name: The Glory of Femininity"A woman's glory is her ability to fill and beautify the creation. After God made the man, He saw it was not good for him to be alone. Man without a woman is like Christ without a church. Nothing already made was up to this high and honourable calling, and so the situation called for a fresh creation from God. God made the man for dominion, and next He makes the woman for the man. Together, their task becomes both possible and rewarding. The woman is the glory of the man, which means she is the glory of the glory...
2023-07-231h 002023-07-1643 minTrinity FellowshipGenesis 1:26-31 - "A House for My Name: The Glory of Masculinity"The glory of men is their strength. Men were made to do hard things. Men were made to bear heavy loads. When men work out physically, they get stronger. When men push themselves to do more, they generally get better at it. It's trendy in our world, even our Christian world to warn one another about burnout and over-doing it, but where in the Bible are we warned about that? The Bible certainly instructs us to take a weekly Sabbath, a day of rest, but beyond that, it says we are to be known for hard, diligent work, and it...
2023-07-161h 02Trinity FellowshipEphesians 1:15-23 - "A House for My Name: The Glory of the Church"God has been pleased to redeem a mass of humanity to give as an inheritance to His Son. Scripture speaks of this group as the church, the assembly, the body, and as the bride of Christ. The first Adam and his bride failed their probation, casting creation into ruin and curse. The Second Adam has taken a bride to Himself as He passes His probation. The Second Adam doesn't shrug off His headship and His strength, but invests it fully into the welfare of His bride. When we are unfaithful, He remains faithful to us, entrusting us to the affairs...
2023-07-0955 min2023-07-0945 minTrinity FellowshipPsalm 145 - "A House for My Name: The Glory of God"All men seek glory, this is inescapable. If misdirected, this search for glory is going to turn in on itself, attempting in vain to find it in ourselves or in our circumstances. We will find our searching to be eternally elusive. To try to find glory, meaning, and peace in the creation instead of in the Creator, in the reflection instead of the Source is very literally the definition of lunacy. Men go mad apart from God, and rightly so. When our search leads us to the God of all glory, the fountain of all reality, our souls will indeed...
2023-07-0249 min2023-07-0242 minTrinity FellowshipRomans 6:1-11 - "Raised With Christ" (Baptism Sunday)Baptism is a step of obedience for those that have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. It is a sign to the world around us that our allegiances have changed; we are no longer slaves to sin but belong body and soul to Jesus Christ. In baptism we are confessing that we have died to sin and been made alive to the things of God. And as we do this, Christ is also ministering to us, reminding us of what He has done on our behalf. Adoption into God's family and union with Christ...
2023-06-2523 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 11:20-30 - "Wrath & Grace"Everyone here is in earshot of the gospel. Many of us have grown up around it, and have the tremendous blessing of having learned it over a lifetime. Whether this morning is the first time you've heard an invitation from Christ, or whether this is just another occasion over 70 years, His offer stands. He is offering rest for those who come to Him in empty-handed faith. To hear this and walk away, or to hear this and not care, or to hear this and try to sit it alongside your unbelief, or to hear it and treat it as just...
2023-06-1839 min2023-06-1854 min2023-06-1146 min2023-06-1151 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 10:34-42 - "Ultimate Allegiance"Sin and rebellion have thrown this world into a great darkness and confusion. The world is dark and confused because it is populated by people who have chosen darkness and confusion. When our first parents kicked at the rule of God, everyone in this room was there with them. There is only one way back, and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ. He has shone His light into the world, and while our natural reaction to Him is violent, we know that the light must overcome the darkness. When we live our lives to the glory of God, we...
2023-06-0454 min2023-06-0448 minTrinity FellowshipActs 2:1-13 - "Wind & Fire, Wine & Water" (Pentecost Sunday)Pentecost concludes much of God's earlier work. Most notably, it reverses a curse that God sent against idolatrous unity, and replaces it with a blessing born out of true unity. In this way, Pentecost is also a fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham to bless all the nations of earth. It concludes God giving law to Moses on Sinai amid wind and fire. The description of the Holy Spirit's work help us understand the meaning of Eden's four rivers and of how Ezekiel's temple turns a trickle into a flood. The Holy Spirit is wind, fire, and water; and He...
2023-05-2853 minTrinity FellowshipHebrews 1:1-5 - "At the Right Hand of Majesty" (Ascension Sunday)Today we celebrate the fact that Christ ascended back to heaven 40 days after His resurrection. Ascension is a theme that appears in the mists and shadows of all redemptive history. It's there in the smoke of the ascension offerings which go up to God. It's there in the saints who bypass death like Elijah, and get taken directly to heaven. It's in Daniel's vision of the Son of Man going up to the Ancient of Days. The pattern of 40 days of probation also lurks quietly. Like Israel was in the wilderness for 40 years, so Christ is tested for 40 days before...
2023-05-2147 min2023-05-2154 min2023-05-1450 minTrinity FellowshipMatthew 10:26-33 - "The Fear of God"Fear makes men weak. Godless men resort to violence and intimidation not because of their strength, but because of their weakness. They can't help being made in the image of God, and this means they know their dark deeds will be exposed. Their fear makes sense. Fear is what drives them to persecute the godly, and this is precisely why Christians are not to give in to the fear. Our sins have been forgiven. Fear and shame have been driven far away, and so we are to stand strong and confidently. We know that God brings all things to light...
2023-05-1439 min