Central Church Contemporary Service

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/10190443/September-7-Sermon-1.mp3 Luke 5:1-11 Jesus Calls His First Disciples 5 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret,[a] the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. 8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don't be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.   Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Good morning, No no. Thank you, I appreciate that, but you make me blush. I don’t like that. It’s good to see you. It’s good to be back. Thank you, Alexander. One day you’ll get it right. I think we reached the goal. I think we got a few donations during the week, so I think we hit the thousandth, and I am so, so grateful for that. Thank you for your grace, the way in which you can care for other people as well. What a wonderful, wonderful place this is. It’s always caring and giving and looking out for others. Let me, let me pray with you. Father, you are so good, and we live from the goodness of God. David got it right when he said, your goodness and your mercy follow me all the days of my life. We can’t get away from it long, even if we try. It keeps on following us. Thank you that we may live in that goodness. And then this morning again, as we break your word together, our prayer is that we will see Jesus, and only Jesus. Amen. I’m going to talk a little bit about following Jesus today. Now, now here’s the thing. Sometimes I think many of us, and many folks, and even many churches get this wrong, because when we speak about following, all of a sudden it becomes this obligation. I kind of have this chart on the fridge, and it’s got these little blocks, and I have to tick these little blocks. I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this, I’m okay. But if we look at the disciples, the first followers of Jesus, the picture is completely the opposite of that. For them, following Jesus was no obligation, despite the fact that they had to make many sacrifices to do that. They wanted to follow Jesus, but not out of obligation, but because they wanted an intimate relationship with him, being in his presence, learning from him, not doing something for God, but doing life with God, growing closer, and closer, and closer, and closer to Jesus, and looking more and more like Jesus. How do we do that? How do we get so close in this when we follow Jesus? Well, I’m going to look at a passage, and Alexander just showed me this morning. He has a new programme that every sermon I preach, he’s got the text there, and when he hits the button, it shows him exactly how many times I’ve preached on that same passage. It’s the truth. You can go look there, and I said, well, Alexander, today if you go look for this chapter, you might find it about six, seven, or eight times, only twice. I’ve preached it way more than that. This is one of my favourite passages. Have you written this one up as the one for my funeral as well? Luke chapter five. It’s one of my favourite, favourite passages. I just love it. It’s such a beautiful moment. One day, as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret. Now, I think I told you this before, too. Lake of Gennesaret is the Sea of Galilee. It’s called Lake of Gennesaret in Hebrew, Yam Kineret. In Hebrew, Kineret means a harp, and when you look at the Sea of Galilee from above, it looks like a harp, so they call it the Lake of the Harp. That’s what Lake Gennesaret means, but it’s the Sea of Galilee. One day, as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the Word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats left there by the fishermen who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore, and then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When it finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch. Simon answered, Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything, but, and there’s your biblical but, but because you say so, I will let down the nets. And when they’d done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, go away from me, Lord. I’m a cynical man. For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they’d taken, and so were James and John, or actually Jacob, remember I told you, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. And then Jesus said to Simon, don’t be afraid. From now on you will fish for people. And so they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything, and followed them. Talking about following Jesus, I want us to notice a few things from this passage about following, getting closer to Jesus. First thing, growing closer to Jesus requires us to listen carefully. When I say that, it’s not something new, but we also know that from our own relationship. If we do not listen to each other in our relationship, it will break down. There’s no question about that. Maybe one of the best examples of that is what’s going on right now between us and our neighbour down south. When you don’t listen, relationships just fall apart, and they can’t work, and we grow further and further apart from each other. Same thing with our relationship with Jesus. If we want to follow Jesus and grow closer to him, it starts by listening to him. But here’s the cool thing about listening to Jesus. In that situation of sitting with him, listening to him, it creates this safe space in which I can also ask my questions. Those difficult ones like, Lord, I’m trying so hard to walk with you. Why I struggle and I stumble? Can I make it? Questions like, I just don’t know if I can be with you. I just don’t feel safe. Or maybe saying, will you give me time? I just need to listen. You know what? Going close needs that moment to listen, because here’s the cool thing and the amazing thing. That’s what prayer is all about. We think often that prayer is me doing a lot of this. Actually, it’s doing a lot of this. And listen. Because we’ll talk, and we’ll say, and we’ll ask, but how many times do we stop, and we’re just quiet, and we just sit, and we just listen so that God can answer, so that God can speak back? Because only when I listen and I allow him to speak back into my life can I hear what he’s trying to say to me, where he’s trying to guide me, where he’s trying to take me, so that I can grow in that relationship with him. Please, take time to listen. Sometimes you don’t want to listen, because the things he says are really difficult. Right now, I’m going through a really difficult time thinking of my mother in South Africa alone, because she’s really struggling, and she has no one anymore. I struggle because I had to listen. Lord said, pack it up and go. It’s a place called Central, but I need you. We had to pack up and go. Sometimes we don’t want to listen, but in listening, this is how we grow in him, and in your faith, walk with him, and in following. There’s a second thing. So, Jesus preaching, looks around, sees the boats, gets into one of the boats, and he says to Peter, push it out from shore. I’m going to preach. He sits down, and he preaches. Now, usually, when we look at this, we look at this moment from Jesus’ perspective. He’s standing there on the shore. The crowd’s getting bigger, bigger. They’re pushing him further and further, right up into the water, and then he needs a place to kind of get into. He gets in the boat, so he gets a little bit away, and of course, the water will amplify the voice as it goes out to the people. I don’t want to go to that perspective this morning. I want to go to the different perspective of one of these disciple guys, which by then was not disciples. It was just a bunch of fishermen. Just think for a moment from their perspective. They were out on those boats the whole night trying to catch fish because that’s how they feed their family. That’s how they make a living. That’s how they feed other people. They come back disappointed. They didn’t catch a single fish, so they get the nets ready because they have to go out again tonight, and hopefully, there will be a catch. I’m sure in their minds, it’s like, let’s clean these nets. Let’s get them in the boats. Let’s just get home, have something to eat, go to bed, and get ready for tonight. That’s when Jesus says, get me in the boat, please. What a talk. Here’s the second thing. Number one, growing closer to Jesus requires listening. Number two, growing closer to Jesus will ask of me to be inconvenienced and uncomfortable often. I know we don’t like that because we don’t like to be uncomfortable. Our world is set up to be. Everything needs to be comfortable, except the church. It’s always hard. We don’t like to be uncomfortable. We like to be comfortable. Just think about all the inconvenient things Jesus said. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Walk with me. Pray for your enemies. Love your enemies. Think of all the uncomfortable things he asked the disciples to do. Lord, these people are hungry. Well, you feed them. You want to be a disciple? Sure, leave everything. Follow me. And when he sends them out for the first time to go speak the gospel on their own, he says, leave everything behind. Don’t take anything else. Just go. See, here’s the thing. Following Jesus means that in this world, we will often feel uncomfortable and inconvenienced because of who we are in Christ Jesus as we grow closer and closer to him and look more and more like him. Tell me, did the world like him? Was it convenient? Was it comfortable? As we grow closer, that is what will be part of our life as well. And even Jesus will confront us, each one of us, with hard things about ourselves, hard truths that we will have to confront in this walk with him. He will often allow us to go into difficult situations that we would choose not to go exactly as he did. He will allow us to meet up with some folks that are difficult and hard and make life hard for them. But when he calls us to follow him, he never says, come do this easy thing with me. He says, you’re going to walk. You’re going to carry. You’re going to put me number one in your life. That might not always be comfortable. Are you prepared to do that? See, here’s the thing. Lots of folks jumped in the boat and said, oh yeah, we’ll listen. That’s pretty cool. But the moment it’s inconvenient and it’s uncomfortable, they jump ship and they go. This is the third thing. So he preaches. When he’s done, he looks at Peter and he says, let’s go fish, buddy. Go out to the deep part of the lake and let’s go catch some fish. Now, remember, I told you this before. When they fish, they fish at night because that’s when the fish come closer to the shore where it’s nice and warm. Their nets were shallow water nets. You just think about this when you go to John 21, which is kind of the other part of this, where they go back to fishing, which they shouldn’t, and Jesus comes and calls them. When they’re fishing there and Peter sees Jesus, he says he jumped out of the boat and he ran to Jesus because they caught fish close to the shore. That’s why Jesus could call to them. They weren’t right out there. And he says, go to the deep water. The nets wouldn’t work there because they were just short nets. They should go right under them. They didn’t catch in the day. The fish were way down there. So no wonder Peter was a little apprehensive about this idea of going to catch fish. It was counterintuitive to what he has known all of his life. This is how it works. This is how we do it. This is not the right thing to go do right now. I get it. You would have said the same things like Matt. But there was the but moment. Thinks about it and he thinks okay. But because you say so, we let the nets down. And there’s number three. Growing closer to Jesus means listening. Growing closer to Jesus will ask of me to be inconvenienced or uncomfortable. And number three is growing closer to Jesus and following him means that I will try it Jesus way. Peter caught fish a gazillion times this way. Never try it this way. Jesus says, go try this. What happens? Those nets just overflow. Try it. But we’ve always done it this way. Try it. But Lord it looks. Try it. Try it. And when they did, boy we needed more boats than they ever could imagine. See here’s the thing. Jesus doesn’t ask of you to leave everything behind. All he asks you is that you will trust him with one thing. Try it this way. See if he is faithful in what he is called to try. Can I invite you to go fishing with Jesus and try it this way? I can stand here today and I can say I guarantee you when you do that, your life will be filled with such of this abundance that you will not know what to do with that abundance you call it. Even if like this moment it looks completely impossible. Oh the things that wait to do it with. When you walk into the boardroom and it’s heated and people are angry and they’re going at each other, why don’t you be the kind and the gracious? Why do you need Jesus? When you get into that argument with your husband, with your wife, stop and think for a moment. Why don’t you try it? When you feel overwhelmed and you kind of feel like giving up, why don’t you try it? Jesus. One little step at a time. Sometimes it will overwhelm us like it did with Peter. In the moment when Peter realises what has happened in this moment, he says, Lord this is scary. I don’t know if I can handle this. And that’s often what we do when he says try it my way. It’s like I don’t think I can do this. And we do it and it’s like holy, but I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I can stay so close to you. And that’s the moment where Jesus says, Peter, to think this was something you ain’t seen nothing yet. You thought you were just going to catch fish. You will be stunned at what I’m going to let you do because you are going to be the biggest fish that you could ever be because you are going to change lives. You try and push away and all he says is come a little closer. Come a little closer. Come a little closer. The closer I get, the more and more I look like him. More and more I do like him. More and more I want to be close because that’s God. That’s just who he is. Just think about it. God came so close to us in this world through Jesus. He came. He came close to messy people, broken people. The thing is we’re the ones who kind of run away. Here’s my invitation. What do you think? Should we go fishing? Amen. Take a few moments of quiet prayer. As we walk this world, Lord, thank you that we can do the words of this song that we sang. May we speak Jesus in our thoughts, in our actions, in our words, in all of our lives. May we come so close to you, Lord, that we become your hands and feet and your lives in this world. Help us every day to listen, to do what you want us to do, and above all, Lord, to do it your way. Thank you for the grace of this morning. Thank you for the gift of your amazing name. We love you, Lord, with all that is in us as we pray in the name of Jesus.  

by Jim Hetherington https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/03104103/August-30-Sermon.mp3 Luke 9:18-26 Peter Declares That Jesus Is the Messiah 18 Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?” 19 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.” 20 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “God's Messiah.” Jesus Predicts His Death 21 Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. 22 And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” 23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? 26 Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.   Ephesians 2:8 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Just while we’re getting ready to worship this morning, again, we’re going to be joined by Jim Hetherington, a kale and quinoa salad loving speaker, who is also a Guinness World Record holder. So, we are truly blessed this morning. Jim. Oh my goodness, the things that people say and talk about. So, I do have to highlight the Guinness World Records attempt. That was so much fun. I haven’t had a chance to share with many of you, so I had this great idea about a year and a half ago to attempt a Guinness World Records attempt. So, what it was, was the most authors in the same book gathered in the same room and signed that book at the same time. So, the current record, or the previous record, was 126, and it was set in Toronto about six years ago, and for some reason, I couldn’t be there. I wasn’t able to be a part of it. I always thought it would be a great thing to do, so I started to reach out to Guinness, and there’s a lot you got to go through. There’s a lot of gatekeepers that you got to go in before you finally get an interview and get to talk with someone, and I think in the email threads, I think in the one email thread, I think I have about almost 80, about 78 emails back and forth. That’s how much dialogue went back and forth, and that’s not to mention the adjudicator and the follow-up people and everything, so it was just a lot of work. So, we had 183 people became part of this book. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to round up 183 people before. It was a challenge in itself, just to get the content from everybody to put into the book, and so on the day of the event, 142 of them actually showed up and were part of it, and so we had the adjudicator come in, we sat around tables, and we put a copy of the book that everybody was in on the table, and then he went around, verified who they were to make sure they were in the book, so we couldn’t just have, you know, Betty come in off the street. She had to be in the book. She had to be part of the book. We had to make the book available to the public, so 30 days before the event, we had to have it on Amazon, available to the public, so that we could sell copies of it. We had to sell a minimum of 100 copies of the book before the event. I mean, there was just a lot of fun stuff that we had to do, so when he went through and verified everybody, he said, okay, sign, and so everybody signed the book and passed it to the next person around the table, so we ended up with all these books, and so he came out a little bit later after he calculated everything, went with the witnesses that verified it all, and came out and said yes, that we had indeed set a new Guinness World Record of 142 authors signing the same book simultaneously, which was a lot of fun. It was just a lot of fun, so that’s something else I get to add to my resume, which is just so much fun, so anyways, that’s not why I’m here. I was looking for the stool of repentance. I know it’s hiding here someplace. I’m going to steal it from, I don’t know who was sitting on it, but they’re not sitting on it any longer, so I thought I’d start with, this isn’t the normal stool, but this will work. This one’s padded. This is even better, so I thought I’d start with the stool of repentance because I got a confession to make. There’s three things that I dislike. Wasting energy, wasting time, and wasting money. Anybody in any of those categories with me? I see some hands. Yes, I see hands going. I bet you it’s the money thing, right? Most people are like, oh, I wish I didn’t spend it on that. I could have got it five cents cheaper if I wouldn’t gone down the street, right? How many here drive, you know, 10 miles to go save two cents on a litre of gas? Anybody want to? Oh, we got a couple. We got a couple to do this. I think that’s hilarious, but you know, just one of those things that I’ve just noticed over time as I’ve matured, that’s code for old, getting older, as I’ve matured that, you know, those three things are really valuable and important to me, and I don’t know if it’s because, you know, we all know we have an expiration date, right? We don’t know what that expiration date is, but we know we got one, and I think as we get more mature and a little wiser with our years, we start to look at those things and we say, wow, I gotta stop wasting time. I gotta stop wasting so much money. I gotta stop wasting so much energy. I mean, how many people here have walked into the kitchen and forgotten what you went in there for, right? Then you have to walk back out again, go back into the room, come back in again, and try it all over again. That’s just a waste of energy, isn’t it? And say, you know, and with time, you know, with time, I audit my time every once in a while. Anybody else audit their time occasionally? Oh, I got no, I got no hands. Good, then you’re going to enjoy this lesson today. So, I audit my time every once in a while. I look down, and I started to teach this with my community because I calculated, you know, we got seven days a week, right? Everybody’s got seven days. We agree on that. We got 24 hours in a day, right? That equals 168. So, we got 168 hours every week. So, every once in a while, I’ll sit down with my timer. Okay, Jimmy, you got 160 hours. What did you do with it? And then I’ll start to backtrack what I’ve done, you know, with sleeping and spending time, and, you know, devotions, and reading, and studying, spending time with Mary, doing all those different things, and I begin to calculate it. Well, the first time I did it a number of years ago, I was missing seven hours. Anybody ever lose seven hours of time? I mean, I hunted all over the place trying to figure out where that seven hours went, and I could not figure out where it went. And I calculated, or recalculated, and went back. I started at the beginning, and came backwards. I started the backwards, and started going forwards, and I could not find it. Finally, I realised that I was watching a little bit of Netflix, right? How many here love Netflix, or, you know, any of those? I mean, there’s some great series on there. There’s some great movies. There’s some great entertainment, and I love getting into, you know, another story. I just love stories. I love getting into other stories, and when they come to life in movies, or in dramas, in sitcoms, whatever it is, I just love getting into those things. Well, I discovered I was watching a few extra than I thought I was, right? I was writing down one. Well, apparently, I was two or three that I was watching, so then I thought, okay, I need to adjust that, so I took that, and I found what that seven hours was, and I adjusted it, and I got going. Earlier this year, I did the same thing. I did another audit, and this isn’t, you know, commissioned by CRA or anything. It was just an audit that I just do on my own, and so I started going through it, and I discovered again. Good old Netflix had snuck back in there, and now, instead of one or two, I was watching two or three, and they go, oh, well, what would happen if I took one of those hours and invested it someplace else? So, I began to do that. I took one hour away from Netflix. Bad Netflix. I took it away from Netflix, and I started to invest it in doing something different with it, and I began to do this daily. I would just invest this hour into something different, and so in two weeks, I’m going to launch another book. I was able to write a book going through just stealing an hour back from Netflix and investing it into researching and reading and rewriting and doing all that fun stuff. I’ve now got my book in. It’s getting formatted and ready to come out in a couple weeks, so then I thought, well, I should share this with others, and so in my community, I’m starting a 100 hour sprint, and it’s taking one hour and focussing it on something that we want to change, a goal or something we want to achieve, something we want to change, and doing it for 100 days, and so I’m saying that because if you ever thought about something that you want to do or something you want to accomplish, a goal that you’re not really achieving, you’re welcome to The only cost is the commitment to the time, committing to that one hour and doing that, so if you want to, come up and see me afterwards. I’ll get you the Zoom link. We’re just going to meet on Zoom and take people through because I divide my years in quarters. Every three months is a quarter of the year, so September is coming up. We’re going to start this thing, and then October, November, December, that’s the last quarter, and that’s when businesses want to turn everything around and finish strong, and people look at their goals that they set on January 1st. How many set goals and intentions in January? No confessors on that one. I’m sure there are some that I see a couple hands waving around there. Yes, okay, and how are those goals working out for you? Oh, you’re on track. Good for you. That’s amazing. Good for you because many people, you know, by February or, you know, by the beginning of February, they’ve lost and they’ve forgotten about them, but we want to encourage people to finish strong in that last quarter because there’s so much that can be accomplished, and I was thinking of some of the mentors that I’ve had, one in particular. His name is Brian Tracy, and he said that to do a presentation, you need to spend 40 hours, four zero hours, in doing a presentation. That’s a lot of commitment, right? I mean, we could all commit right now to becoming vegetarians, and that might last until lunchtime, right, when that juicy hamburger is calling us, right? We can all start things. We can have good intentions to start things, but the follow-through, to finish it off strong, is a tough thing to do, and I don’t think we’re meant to do these things on our own. We’re meant to have community, have people around us to support and encourage us with that because it’s easy to have good intentions, right? You can think back of your own life and your own journey. I’m sure you can think of many times that you’ve started things and, you know, said, I’m going on that diet. Yep, supper time’s coming. That’s the end of the diet, right? You know, I’m going to go healthy. I’m going to start exercising weekly. It got as far as putting on your running shoes, and that was it. Like, that’s as far as you got with it, but to finish strong, I think, is an important thing to do. So, if you want to join us, you can join us because it’s one of those things that I really believe is that having the accountability, having people in our lives to encourage and support us, is an important thing to do. So, that’s my confession. You know, those are the three things that I don’t like wasting, is time, energy, and finances. This morning, we’re going to shift a little bit. We’re going to tie it all together. It’ll tie all together as we go, but I wanted to shift and talk about faith because, again, it’s something that is free, right? None of us paid for the faith that we have. None of us paid for the relationship we have with God. None of us have paid for the hours we get every day. None of us have paid any of those things. All that stuff is free, but what we do with it is valuable and important, and I think we need to look at that with our faith journey, with our walk in our relationship, and just say, how are we spending that time? How are we spending the energy in that? In Ephesians 2, it says this, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is a gift from God. We recognise that it’s a gift that God gives us, right? Each day is a new day, and it’s a gift that God gives us, right? None of us at 11.58 at the evening before are running around going, oh, I gotta pay for the next 24 hours, right? I better get my, what’s the word I’m looking for? Credit for the day, right? I better get it in now so that I got my 24 hours. None of us have to do that, right? We go to bed at nighttime. We just believe that when our eyes open up, we’ve got another 24 hours. We got another day to use, and we recognise that it is a gift that comes from God. I want to read our main text from Luke chapter 9, verses 18 to 26. Prior to this, just leading up to this, Jesus has been doing a lot of miracles and healing the sick and setting people free from demons and from unhealthy, unclean spirits. He’s been sending out his disciples and doing it, and he met with them, and he was having this conversation with them. Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, who do the crowds say I am? They replied, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago have come back to life. But what about you, he asked. Who do you say I am? And just Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Then he said to them, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the son of man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the father and of the holy angels. It’s interesting, you know, that oftentimes we read in Scripture how Jesus went alone on his own to pray, but this time he was praying, but he had the disciples with him. He was hanging out with them in private, and it’s in those private meetings that things really gathered. As Stacey asked me earlier in the morning, if you got locked in an elevator, who would you want to get locked up with, right? Because it’s in those quiet moments, in those moments where we’re locked in a room or having a lunch with somebody or having a private meeting or an encounter, that we really get to know that person, and we get some real wisdom, we get some real understanding, we get a real depth of things when we get alone with them. And this is what it was like with the disciples. They’re hanging out with Jesus, and in those quiet moments he was leaning in and pouring out even more to them. And so he was challenging them and saying, you know what, who do you say I am? Or who did the crowd say I am? You know, and so he was getting the consensus of what was being spoken, you know, what are the reports coming in on CNN? What are the reports coming in on CTV news? What are the reports that, what are other people saying? But then he made it more personal, right? Don’t just look at their opinions, don’t just look at what other people are saying. What do you say? Because that’s where the rubber hits the road, as they say, right? That’s where true faith comes in, is what do you say? We can come to church and we can believe what the church doctrine is, we can believe what the church teaches and preaches, what the mandates are, and all that stuff, but what does it really mean to you? And that’s what Jesus was pushing in and pressing in on them, was what do you, who do you say that I am? And then he warned them strictly not to share it with anybody. It was almost like they leaned in and he pulled back the veil and said, guys, it really is true. It is me. I’m the one that was, you know, that your forefathers talked about. I’m the one that the prophets talked about. It really is me, but don’t tell anybody, right? You can go out in authority in my name, which he did. He commissioned them and he gave them authority to heal the sick and to set people free. It’s interesting that anywhere he went, whenever he went, sent the disciples up or any healing that he did, it was always mentioned that it was the healing of the sick and unclean spirits. Interesting how there was that combination, no matter where he went, no matter what was happening, there were these two things. It was the influence of unclean spirits in people’s lives and setting people free of sickness and illness. And it was fascinating how he did this and how he set them on the track to give him authority to speak in his name. Then he goes on to talk about whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up the cross. It’s so easy today, isn’t it, with all the doom scrolling. Anybody, you understand the doom scrolling, right? It’s taking that phone or getting on the computer and just endlessly searching and looking things up and scrolling through things to get our time, right? To take our time, to keep us activated. You realise that people are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to figure out ways to keep you engaged online, right? That’s their sole job, is just to create stuff and algorithms and stuff in a way just to keep you engaged, right? Have you ever talked about something, you know, in the presence of a computer or a television or a smartphone, and then all of a sudden that thing comes up on the smartphone, another thing. You know, there was a joke one time, a couple were talking and they were discussing how people saying that, you know, AI is always listening. Computers are listening to all our conversations. We can’t say anything in private because there’s ears everywhere. And they looked at each other and they started to laugh and they said, that’s impossible. And then Siri started to laugh, right? And then every, you know, all these other algorithms started laughing at them with them. But it’s true that, you know, those things are always listening, but they’re designed to keep us engaged. Why? To suck up our time, to keep us engaged in stuff that isn’t actively moving the kingdom of God forward. And that’s what we need to look at as Christians, is how are we using our time? Is there a better way to use our time? Are there more, you know, are there different relationships or better relationships that we can invest in that would actually encourage and support another person? Are there things that we can do actively with our time and our energy? Thinking about the hour, now an hour is a long time to commit to praying, isn’t it? But what about 10 minutes? Imagine what 10 minutes a day praying for 100 days would do. Imagine the effectiveness of committing to something like that on a regular basis. Imagine what God’s Spirit would begin to release to us or reveal to us as we begin to engage in that kind of activity. And that’s something that each one of us could do. Who here could not find 10 minutes to do something different with, right? We could all take 10 minutes from something and engage it in a different way. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit their own their selves? It’s interesting how Jesus challenges them at a deeper level. They thought they were just signing up because he was a great teacher, right? Because he was the current one, right? But he chose them for a reason, just the same as he speaks and challenges and calls each one of us to go deeper in a relationship with him. Our faith is free, but it isn’t cheap. And cheap has a terrible, you know, tone to it, right? But what I mean by that is that it did cost, didn’t cost us anything, but it will cost us if we really want to commit and walk in it. And I really believe that there’s a time where the church is going to begin to have to stand up for what they really believe. That it’s similar to what Jesus said to the disciples leaning forward. He said, that’s great. You’re hearing what everybody else is saying. You’re hearing the reports of what other people are saying, but what do you say? So let me ask you in your personal life, you hear what other people say in conversations, you hear different reports, you may read little blogs or emails, you may hear different things on YouTube and on Netflix, but what do you really say? Who do you say that God is? And what does God really mean to you? What does your relationship with him really mean? Is it something worth investing in, or is it something that we just pretend to do? You know, it’s one thing to show up on a Sunday morning, it’s another thing to live it out Monday to Saturday. That’s where it really becomes a challenge, doesn’t it? When we get into the grind of work or get into conflicting arguments or conversations with people, when we have struggles in families or with friends and neighbours, that’s when it can really become challenging. Faith will cost us. It will cost us time. If we’re really serious about our faith, we need to commit regular time to studying, to reading, to praying, to encouraging others. It may mean standing up for something or standing up and being accounted for. You know, it was interesting when you read that last part of that text that we read here, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of those holy angels. How he’s calling us and challenging us. Are we willing to confess? Are we really willing to say and stand up for what we believe in? As we move forward, we can look at it, and there’s five things that I want to encourage us that we need to look at. One, we talked about earlier, is the time, right? Our faith grows as we spend more time with God. It’s going to take an investment of time. You invest a Sunday morning to come and gather corporately, to worship, to sing, to encourage each other, to listen to someone teach. What about the rest of the week? What are we doing with that time? Is there more time that we could allocate into spending time with God and praying and so on? The energy. Serving God takes energy and commitment. I mean, many of you come here, the worship leaders and those leading in the band, they come early to get set up. Our sound guys and our audio guys, everybody comes in early. Our greeters are here to prepare. Our Sunday school department is ready to go, right? There’s a commitment of energy to come in and get things prepared. So, it takes energy for us to really commit. And then, the commitment. Deciding to commit to something, deciding that we’re going to step out and do something, right? Rather than saying, okay, I’m going to go on that diet. It’s committing to doing what needs to happen. It’s committing to creating an environment that’s going to set you up for success, right? We know that we can’t have a good healthy diet if our kitchen pantries are full of chocolate chip cookies and potato chips and all those other wonderful food groups. So, we know that we need to set up our environment to really be committed to something. Faith calls us to be obedient. There’s some things that we may need to turn away from. There may be relationships or friendships that we need to step away from because some of those may be influencing us in a negative way. So, to be obedient to what God is calling us to is part of that faith journey. And just listening to what the Holy Spirit is saying, listening to those promptings. Oh, maybe Jim, you shouldn’t watch that third episode of Netflix today, right? It’s listening to those small things and say, okay, what can I do with that? But that takes energy to step away from it and to step into something different, isn’t it? It’s easy for us to get into the routine of just scrolling on our phones, just sitting back, flipping out another Netflix series, going to the kitchen, eating whatever we want. It doesn’t take any energy or commitment to do those things. But to live lives that Jesus is calling his disciples to, for example, took energy and commitment and obedience to listen to what God is calling them to, to step out in the truth. Because imagine that, you know, in those times when Jesus is ministering to his disciples, they didn’t have books that they go to the library. I mean, we’ve got amazing books out back there that, you know, we could read and learn about, right? They were living the stuff. They had to decide whether they were going to follow Jesus. They had to decide whether they’re going to be obedient to him. They had to decide whether it’s really worth picking up the cross, right? The cross had a whole different meaning for them. Cross meant pain, suffering, and death to them. Cross wasn’t something nice that we put in a church. Cross wasn’t something nice that you just hang around your neck and wear on a chain. The cross to them made something completely different. So when Jesus was saying, pick up your cross, he was just like, pick up that which may cause suffering and pain and death and separation, but pick it up and follow me. And it’s interesting how he challenged them and encouraged them to pick it up before he went to the cross. He said, this is where this journey is going to land, is where it’s going to cost us to pick up the cross. We have great freedom in this country, don’t we? Freedom to come to church. There’s no obstacles. There’s no militia, you know, trying to force us from not going or attending. There’s no government agencies or anything trying to force us underground. We have complete freedom. But sometimes in that freedom, we lose sight of what it really means. And I think it’s important that we go back to looking at these scriptures and what it really cost those disciples at the very beginning. What it cost them to step out in obedience. What it cost them to leave their livelihood and to follow Jesus was a completely different thing. And they had to decide in that moment if this guy is a lunatic or is he the real deal. And as they got to know him, as they got to spend time with him, he began to reveal more and more to them. And they began to discern that he really was the real deal. And you and I need to come to that same place of saying, who is he really to us? Is he a lunatic? Do I believe the stories in the Bible? Do I really believe the healings? Do I believe the stuff that I’ve read? Or is it just nice stuff that somebody put together? And it’s something that each of us have to individually decide. We can’t decide as a church. We can’t decide as a congregation. We have to decide individually. Because God meets us all where we’re at. And depending on the level of time and energy and commitment and obedience is the level to which God can use us in advancing his kingdom. The disciples were willing to put everything aside to follow him. The challenge is for us to look at it and say, am I willing to really follow it? I wanted to end with this question. What’s keeping us, what’s keeping you, what’s keeping me from following him at a deeper level? Is there something in our lives that’s keeping us from believing more, going to that next level, as they say? Is there something keeping me? For many of us, we attend church. (This file is longer than 30 minutes.

by Beth Anne Fisher https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/19123811/August-16-Sermon.mp3 Matthew 15:10-28 10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone's mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” 12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” 13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides.[a] If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” 15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.” 16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person's mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.” The Faith of a Canaanite Woman 21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” 25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. 26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs.” 27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.” 28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.   Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) I always get nervous when people clap before they’ve ever heard me speak. I feel like it means you’re ready, but also the expectations. I’m just kidding. It’s an honour to be here this morning. Yeah, it’s an honour to be here this morning. I’ve been in Central before for a couple of special events, but I haven’t been here on a Sunday morning, and so it’s a real honour and a privilege to worship with you. When I’m invited to preach somewhere new, and especially at short notice or when there’s sort of an emergency situation, I turn to the lectionary for two reasons. The first is that as a guest and a stranger to the community, I don’t think it’s fully my own, it’s not fully my right, I would say, to choose what it is that you as a community need to hear. And if I just pull a text or decide, well, I like talking about this topic because I wrote my fancy thesis on it, so maybe I’ll tell them about my thesis, that feels to me like I’m making a decision that I think is in part the Spirit’s decision to make and needs to be connected to the community. And so part of my role as a preacher, when I have the privilege of preaching, is to grapple with Scripture. When we think about, at least for me, people being set aside in ministry roles, part of that is that I am expected, and I think it’s my responsibility, to spend the time really grappling with Scripture and to build on the years I’ve spent studying Scripture in a way that I recognise not everyone has the ability to do because we are living in a culture where we have to spend 40 hours working and then another 20 hours doing things that we can’t do during those 40 hours, and then the only thing that’s left is sleep, right? So part of my job is to be faced by the Scriptures, if that makes sense, that I don’t get to also pick and choose and just decide, well, I only want to preach about these three things, or I like these verses, so I’m going to preach on these all the time. The lectionary, one of the things I appreciate about it is it says, here are some texts for today, go and preach on them. And sometimes there’s texts that I’m like, well, I’d really rather not preach on those. And thankfully for me, most churches don’t use all of the lectionary texts, so I still have a bit of picking and choosing in that sense. Anyways, that’s the first reason that I turn to the lectionary. The second reason is, as I’ve said often when I’m a visiting preacher, it’s because there’s either a transition happening or there’s been some sort of disruption to the regular routine. And when we have that kind of disruption, when you have an unfamiliar face and you have no idea if I’m preaching for 15 minutes or 35, I’m here now and there’s nothing you can do. Just kidding. It’s helpful to have that familiarity. It’s helpful to have an anchor and a thing that reminds us that you are connected to a greater body of faith. You as central Presbyterian may be experiencing something unexpected, some changes, some shifts, and yet you are still a part of a community that is beyond just who is here today. And I am a part of that same community. We’re a part of a community. We’re a part of the Presbyterian church. We’re a part of the Protestant church. We’re a part of the Christian church. And many of those churches use the lectionary. There are many other churches in Canada and around the world today that will be hearing the scripture that I’m going to read from the Gospel of Matthew. And the Gospel of Matthew in this passage has been preached many times over the years and centuries of the practise of using the lectionary. And so even when things are unfamiliar, I want to, in using the lectionary, remind us all that we are rooted together through the scripture, through the Spirit of God, to other communities, to each other here, and to the history of the Christian faith. So that’s my intro to why I’m using the lectionary and how we ended up with the passage that I’m going to speak on today. With that in mind, let’s pray and then I’m going to read the text from Matthew. God, we thank you that your word is true and it is powerful and it is a gift to us. We thank you that the word we are hearing this morning is a word that other communities will also be hearing. That there will be different sermons preached about what this means for us. That through the years and centuries and around the globe, communities have heard this story and sought to live it out in their lives. And so I ask that my words this morning would draw us closer to your word, the words of scripture, and your living word, Jesus Christ. Amen. So our reading this morning is from Matthew 15, and I think it’s going to be on the screen, hopefully, verses 10 to 28. So Jesus called the crowd to him and said, listen and understand, what goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them. Then the disciples came to him and said, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this? And he replied, every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them, they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. Peter said, explain the parable to us. Are you still so dull? Jesus asked them. Don’t you see that whoever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. Those are what defile a person, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them. Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him crying out, Lord, son of David, have mercy on me. My daughter is demon possessed and suffering terribly. Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, send her away, for she keeps crying out after us. He answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. The woman came and knelt before him. Lord, help me, she said. He replied, it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs. Yes, it is, Lord, she said. Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table. Then Jesus said to her, woman, you have great faith. Your request is granted. And her daughter was healed at that moment. So this story, this reading, takes place in the context of a conversation with the Pharisees. Just before these verses, a group of Pharisees had come to Jesus and asked him, why don’t your disciples observe the traditions of our fathers and wash their hands before eating? Now, this is not a question of physical cleanliness the way that we understand it today. It was another, I think about another 1,500 years before the science of hand washing and germ prevention was understood by us. This is a question of ceremonial cleanliness and of avoiding spiritual contamination. The Pharisees wanted to make sure that any spiritual contaminants were removed from their bodies before they ate so that those spiritual contaminants would not enter their body. There are many rules about not touching certain things, not touching certain people, and the Pharisees were so concerned about observing these rules that they had made rules about the rules. This is something that perhaps you’ve heard before. This was one of the things the Pharisees did. They said, well, we don’t want to break the law, so we’ll make these like buffer laws, and then if we don’t break those, then we know we won’t be breaking these, right? And so they’d made this rule about washing their hands to ceremonially cleanse themselves of any accidental contact with something that they thought was morally impure. And Jesus doesn’t answer their question when they come and ask him this question. When they say, why don’t your disciples do this thing that are for, we’ve, you know, it’s cultural. We’ve been doing this for hundreds of years. And Jesus doesn’t answer their question. Instead, he calls them hypocrites, first of all. He accuses them of preferring their own traditions over God’s commands. He basically says, these rules that you’ve made, you prioritise them even when they mean breaking the rules that you think they’re helping you keep. And then he moves his attention from the group of Pharisees who had come up to him to the whole crowds that were gathered. And he turns to them, just the regular people. They’re not specialists in the law. They’re not morally, they’re not the purity police, if you will. They’re the regular people. And he talks to them about the harm that the Pharisees are causing. So when he does this, then he says the words that we heard at the start of the reading, this listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth doesn’t make them clean or unclean. It’s what comes out of their mouth. He shifts the attention from this idea of contamination to character. The idea that our moral development, if you will, is not about avoiding things. It’s actually about what we are building within us. So he says this, listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them. And his disciples freak out a little bit. They come to him and they’re like, do you know that you offended the Pharisees? These are powerful people. Are you aware that you said some things they didn’t like? And Jesus is like, I don’t care. And he goes, and he says, every plant that my father didn’t plant is going to be torn up by the roots. They’re blind guides. They’re going to fall into a pit. He speaks very harshly about people with power who are using their power to avoid contamination and cast judgement on the people who have less power. We see that in many places in the way that Jesus interacts with the Pharisees and others who had power. And then he says this metaphor about blind leading the blind. Peter, Peter, we love Peter. He always wants to say, hey, Jesus got a question. Hey, Jesus, what about this? And he says, can you explain what you mean? I really want to be clear if you’re saying what I think you’re saying. And Jesus says, are you still so dull? You can hear Jesus’ frustration. How do you not understand yet? I’ve been saying this for so long. And then Jesus lists. He says, that’s not what you eat. Again, it’s not this idea of following rules that are going to help you to avoid any possible wrongdoing. It’s not fear-based. He says, it’s what comes out of your heart that makes you unclean or defiled. And then he lists several things. And I’m going to just mention them briefly. When I see lists like this, I often go to a Greek concordance, and I was just saying to Alexander before the service, I like to look up the words and get some of the nuance that we sometimes miss, or we don’t know because different translations will have slightly different words for things. So in this list, evil thoughts, very straightforward. Evil thoughts. Murder, also very straightforward. Adultery, adultery. Sexual immorality specifically refers to prostitution, which in the context of Jesus’ time would be sexual slavery, whether it was sexual slavery in a religious context outside of the Israelites’ faith, or whether it was sexual slavery in a non-religious context, but that was the context of prostitution. And incest. Those are the two things specifically that are included in that category of sexual immorality. And then theft. This word used for theft is not like a violent robbery theft. It’s a sneaky theft. It’s fraud. It’s the subtle theft. False testimony. If theft is a sneaky, subtle thing, false testimony is knowingly, intentionally lying about what is true, often looked at in a judicial context. And this is the one other place this phrase is used in the Gospels, as in later on when they’re talking about the Pharisees and the Sadducees looking for people who will give false testimony about Jesus when they’re trying to get him arrested. They went out looking for people who are willing to say things they knew were not true. And then slander. Slander is falsehoods that detract from someone else’s good character, good reputation, and also includes blasphemy. Blasphemy being failing to recognise the goodness usually of God or speaking against God’s goodness. So these are the things that Jesus lists as this is what makes us defiled. This is what pulls down or challenges our moral goodness. Now this in and of itself is a powerful story. It is so easy, I think, for those of us who want to please God to live our lives trying to please God by avoiding contamination, by avoiding anything that might make us catch some sort of wrong. There are people I’m sure we think, oh, I don’t associate with those people because of their moral choices. There are things that we do not do and there are things that we think, not only do I not want to do that, but I’m going to step back three levels and I’m not going to do that thing because I don’t want to accidentally get to this thing. In and of itself, not a bad plan to have a knowledge of our own selves and our weaknesses, and yet when we find our sense of moral superiority perhaps in our ability to avoid those things, that’s what Jesus is challenging. Jesus is saying that’s actually not what it’s about at all. And then the very next story, the very next story, there’s intentionality to how the authors of the Gospels arrange the stories. Sometimes they’re chronological and sometimes they’re put together to show something in the contrast or in the building. If you think about the story of the lost coin and there’s this building towards the story of the lost sheep, right, there’s a repetition of three stories in a row of those parables that are all very similar. They’re trying, they’re building towards something. Here we see the contrast. So we have this exchange where Jesus says, you’ve got it wrong, you’ve got it wrong. And then he goes to another place and a Canaanite woman comes and cries out, Lord son of David, have mercy on me. Now the Canaanites, the Samaritans, and the Israelites kind of all lived in the same region. If you remember the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman, the Samaritan woman asked Jesus a question about what’s the right way to worship. We worship the same God. Your people say we worship in Jerusalem, my people say we worship here on the mountain. There was a shared element of faith and culture there. And even the Samaritan or the story of the good Samaritan, we hear and we see that the Levites and the Pharisees crossed to avoid the Samaritan, right? Again, they didn’t want to be contaminated. Well, the Canaanites didn’t share any faith elements in the same way. The Samaritans were also monotheistic. They had a sense of their heritage coming from the Abrahamic line. The Canaanites, on the other hand, were the people who lived here before Moses and the Israelites came. They were polytheistic. They didn’t share a faith system. So they were another level of contaminated, another degree of outside of what is appropriate, who you are allowed to interact with as an Israelite who is seeking to follow God’s rules. And so this Canaanite woman comes and she says, and I love that she says, Lord son of David. She names him as Lord, this title of respect, and son of David tells me that she knew something of the Israelite religion. She knew something about the messianic prophecies, that it was out of the lineage of David that this ruler would come. So she had some knowledge and she knew something about Jesus. She knew that Jesus could help her. And Jesus ignores her. Jesus ignores her. And the disciples come and say, send her away. She keeps crying out after us. There are other times that the disciples say, send this person away. Send away those children. Don’t bother Jesus with the children. Send away this sick person. Send away all of these people who, again, were either contaminated or unimportant. And then Jesus says to the disciples, I came only to the lost sheep of Israel. Now this is very interesting. There’s a couple different ways of understanding this because we know most of us are not descended from the Israelites and core to the Christian faith is the belief that you don’t have to follow ancient Judaic law in order to be a follower of Jesus. So why would Jesus say this? And I wonder if Jesus is saying what’s expected or reaffirming this idea that we’ve just heard him challenge, which is this idea of separation and segregation in order to avoid contamination. And then the woman comes even closer. She probably heard this. She heard this. She comes even closer and she says, Lord, help me. And once again, Jesus turns to a parable or a metaphor and says, it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and toss it to dogs. This shocks me every time I hear it because it is so harsh. Because this is not what Jesus believes, I would say. We don’t hear Jesus saying anything like this anywhere else. I think, again, what’s happening is Jesus is probably echoing a common saying. I would guess that this is probably something Pharisees would say, to say, no, thank you. This is for Jewish people only, for the Israelites only. One of the things that Jesus said in his critique just before this passage, his critique of the Pharisees is, God says, honour your father and mother, and anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. So Jesus is saying, remember, this is a rule with literal life or death consequences. But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, whatever help you might otherwise have received for me is a gift devoted to God. He is not to honour his father with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You have this practise that you say, well, I’m going to get out of doing this simply by saying, well, actually, that’s for God. And so there’s this connection that I hear here between the ideas of the Pharisees saying, we can twist the words to get out of doing the things that we don’t want to do, where we have these sayings, these things that are serving our desires. And Jesus says something that is out of character for him. And the woman replies. He says, it is not right. And she says, yes, Lord, but, but, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table. I get shivers when I read that, when I stop and hear her say, I’m willing to be a dog, just let me have some crumbs. I know you hate me, but please be kind to me. Then Jesus answered, woman, you have great faith. Your request is granted. This story reminds me of two other stories. One is, as I mentioned, the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman, where Jesus engages with a woman who’s outside of the culture and challenges the norms and expectations, shows compassion, shows curiosity. It also reminds me of the story of the wedding in Cana, where Jesus’s mother comes and they’re run out of wine. And she says to the servants, do whatever Jesus tells you. And Jesus says, no, it’s not my time yet. And then she says, don’t listen, do whatever he tells you. And then he turns the water into wine. That’s the only other place that I can think of where we see Jesus change his mind in a moment, or it seems that he’s changing his mind, that there’s this presentation of one sort of choice, and then the end result is something different. I think it’s very interesting and very important that these are all stories with women, and that there’s the story of Jesus with his mother, then there’s a story of Jesus with a Samaritan who’s one step removed from the system, and then Jesus and the Canaanite woman who’s two steps removed, fully other. So what does this mean for us today? Why do these two vignettes from Jesus’s life matter? Well, the first is a question that I would ask us all is, do we seek to follow God by avoiding contamination, or are we seeking to follow God by building our inner character? Those might look the same in some of the choices that we make sometimes, and sometimes they’re going to be very different results. But which is our heart? What is inside of us? Are we avoiding contamination, or are we building character? And then how does that connect to compassion and kindness, and how we engage with the people that we consider morally other, the people who we would say could contaminate us? And I’ll be honest. There are people that I know that I think, I don’t want to be around those people because their morals repulse me, or their morals make me so angry that I don’t actually want to be kind to them. And I say that because, again, these are the things that Scripture challenges each of us to. There’s no one exempt. We all have that pull, compassion and character. And are we willing to have our minds changed? If Jesus is willing to change His mind, if Jesus is willing to go from calling someone a dog to healing their daughter, are we willing to do the same? And perhaps some of you feel more like the Canaanite woman than a Pharisee. Perhaps people have fed you religious platitudes, telling you your suffering is because of your sin, or you aren’t allowed to do this until you do that because this is the marker of moral rightness. If Jesus is willing to listen to a Canaanite woman, someone He refers to as a dog. Again, I don’t think He actually thought that. I think that He was quoting a phrase that was culturally the belief. But if Jesus is willing to engage with someone that the community considered not even really human, who are we willing to engage with? And who has the right to persist in asking God for help? Everyone. This woman was persistent. She was crying out enough that the disciples said, send her away. She’s a nuisance. She’s being loud. Tell her to get lost. Then she comes even closer. Lord help me. Then Jesus speaks harsh words to her and she’s still not deterred. The Canaanite woman is a woman of great faith. You have great faith, Jesus says to her. He called His disciples

by Jim Hetherington https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/14105937/August-9-Sermon.mp3 Romans 8:31-39(MSG) 31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one. None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12(NIV) 9 Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. 10 And in fact, you do love all of God's family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) All right, that means it’s official. Kevin’s lit the candle. It’s on now. It’s on. So I had to, you know, Aubrey jokes about the stool of repentance. I had to do that this morning. I had to go up and confess that I didn’t send all the scripture verses in through the week. I was so proud of myself, getting everything ahead. Like three weeks ago, I got everything into the office. And yesterday, when I was reviewing my notes, I realised that I put in Romans 8.31. I’m looking around going, where are the rest of those verses? There was supposed to be a dash to 39. And I realised that I didn’t do that. So I had to go up and confess that, you know, that we need to take that slide out. So in looking back at it, it’s going to work out much better. Because I want to read, you know, I should have just said, that was the plan all along was just not to have it up on screen. But no, we’re going to have one up on screen that we’re going to read together. But the other one I want to read is a story because I’m going to read it out of the message. How many have ever read the message version of the Bible? Yeah, it’s not one that you would want to read and do studies from and stuff like that. But it just expands and it just kind of creates the Bible and reads like a story, almost like a novel, if you will. And so it’s really good. And I think this particular verse that we’re going to look at will be encouraging. Is that outside? Is that inside? Is that outside? Okay. All of a sudden, I thought I was going to get run over by something. I thought, what are they doing to me? So let’s start with First Thessalonians chapter four, verses nine to 12. We’ll read this one together. Now about your love for one another, you do not need to write to you. For you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you brothers and sisters to do so more and more and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life. You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as you were told, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders. And so that you will not be dependent on anyone. And if you were with us last week, we talked a little bit about that, about just how we’re to live such lives that those outside of us would look and say, wow, they really walk the talk, right? We know that old expression, walking the talk. Some people talk a good game, but they don’t show up with fruit. There’s no evidence that they’re really doing it. Others talk the talk and they’re walking it, they’re doing it. And I challenged us to look at two questions that I’ve been reading through a book by Jeff Henderson, Know What You’re For, F-O-R. And in that there was two questions. One was, what do you want to be known for? And what do others know you for? Right? So it’s both sides of the coin, because I, you know, it’s kind of like branding, right? An industry, a product can say all kinds of amazing things about themselves, right? You and I may say all kinds of amazing things about ourselves, but it’s what other people are saying that really counts. That’s brand, right? Like McDonald’s can say wonderful things about their burgers and how great they are and how fantastic they are and so on. But if nobody is saying the same thing, that’s not a brand. That’s just them bragging, thinking they’re the best at something, right? So I challenged us to look at that, and especially as the church, we need to look at it and say, what do we want to be known for? You know, we’re in a strategic time right now with new leadership. We’re looking at new options, but we really need to look at what we want to be known for. And it’s a question that we need to look at personally. I had a conversation with a friend just yesterday. I’ve known him for many, many years, and we were talking about this, and he said, well, what do you want to be known for? And so I shared with him what, you know, what I want to be known for. At my final days, at my eulogy, people getting up to say these are the things that I want them to say, and we started talking about it. He said, can I tell you what I see? And so he took those two questions, right? And he threw it back at me, and he said, let me tell you what I think you’re for. And he started to share some of the most deepest complimentary things that anybody’s ever said to me. And I didn’t have to pay him for it. I didn’t have to buy lunch. I didn’t have to do nothing for it. He just gave it to me. But that, you know, it spoke volumes to me. But that’s what you want is what people are seeing from the outside looking in. We can think we’re self-righteous. We can think we got it all together. We can think, you know, highly of ourselves, which is wonderful, but we need to walk it out in such a way that others are looking back and saying, I see that in you. And we can look through the history of the church, and it hasn’t always been the way, has it? Right? The church has stumbled and has, you know, kind of tripped up on some of the stuff and hasn’t got the best reputation on the outside. And this is what Paul is encouraging Thessalonians with, is to live such good lives that those looking out, those non-believers, unbelievers, those unchurched, those on the outside are looking in going, there’s something different about them. Because when we look at the whole of scripture, what does the whole of scripture say? We should be known for our fruit, yes, love. We should be known for our love, the demonstration of love. Right? Because that’s one of those things in culture that kind of weaves and goes up and down. Right? Somebody might love someone today and not love them tomorrow, and then love them the next day and not love them tomorrow. The problem is we can’t differentiate like and love. We’re called to love, doesn’t mean we have to like everything that everybody does all the time. Right? That’s discipleship. That’s building relationship and speaking into that stuff. But if we don’t have a relationship with them, if we don’t love them, we can’t speak into their lives. That’s called nagging. Nobody wants a nag. Right? Nobody wants to hear unwanted criticism. Nobody wants to hear that stuff. It’s only in relationship that we can really speak into people’s lives. So that’s loving consistently, which Paul is saying that you’re doing that well, continue to do it even more. Right? There’s no law, there’s no limit to the love that God will give us. There’s no law limit that we can walk out in love. Is it a challenge? Absolutely. Right? I get cut off in traffic. I get butted in front of just the same, you know, and I want to lose my sanctity some days. But, you know, we have to step back and say, do I need to be, you know, do I want to be known for that or do I want to be known for one that just expresses and shares love? So that’s what Paul is encouraging the church with. The Romans 8, I want to read and I want to hear it like a story. So I’m actually glad that it wasn’t up on the screen. So in Romans 8, in the message, we read this. Well, let me give you a little backstory first. Paul is talking in Romans 8, 28, God can use all things together for good. Right? We know all that stuff. So he’s talking to the believers and saying, look, we know that things are struggling. We know that there’s a challenge. We know that stuff is going on. You’ve come a long way in your faith. You’ve come a long way in your journey. And you may not have had all the words. You may not have had all the stuff together all the time, but the Holy Spirit has empowered you. The Holy Spirit has come along to speak and give you the words and give you the answers. You know, it’s those moments when you have those conversations with somebody, you don’t know what to say. And then all of a sudden the words just come into your mind. They come into your mouth. You go, where did that come from? Right? That’s the kind of stuff that Paul is talking about here. They’re witnessing the expression of the Holy Spirit. So in, in verse 31, he starts with this. So he says, so what do you think with God on our side like this being with us, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even point a finger? The one who died for us, who was raised to life for us, is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There’s no way. Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in scripture. The scripture says they, they kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks. They pick us off one by one, but none of this phases us because Jesus loved for us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing, nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable, absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our master has embraced us. Doesn’t that paint a great picture of how God stands up for us? How he’s with us? And I love that part where he talks about a wedge, right? We, we all know what a wedge is. Well, maybe you don’t. I brought a couple with me just for for demonstration. Because you know me, I like to have visual aids. So this is a small wedge. Seems tiny and innocent, doesn’t it? Doesn’t look like it do much. But this one particularly is designed to go in an axe head. So the axe handle goes into the head, the big large metal head, and at the top of the axe handle is a split. And this is to go in there and is hammered down so it splits the top of the axe head, the handle rather, so that it holds the axe head from coming loose. Which is a good thing, right? You don’t know the, you know, the dynamics of an axe. It’s a good thing that it’s held in place. But that’s the proper use of a wedge. Now you can take a bigger wedge and you could take a log, for example. I could take a log and take this and hammer it down into the log. And this would slowly push down and begin to force that log apart. Just by hammering this down inside it would force it apart. That’s the idea of a wedge. And so what Paul is painting a picture of is, is can anything wedge its way in there and cause division between God’s love for us? There’s a story. You know the enemy’s a schemer, likes to brag, likes to show off. The enemy had a museum and in this museum he displayed all the ways that he has caused man to falter and fall and sin and be broken and all that stuff. And he was showing someone through this museum one time. And all the things were on display. Signs and all the different things that ways that he has caused people to trip up. And at the end of this one corridor was this glass case with a couple of shining lights coming down on it. And the man turned the corner. He said, well, what’s that? And the devil says, oh, he says, that’s my prized possession. He says, well, what is it? And he says, come with me. So they walked down and they stood in front of the case. And that’s what was inside of it. He said, it’s a wedge. The guy says, well, what good can a wedge do? He says, oh, he says, I can take a wedge and I can put it between a husband and a wife and I can cause them to separate. I can take it and wedge it down in between the pews of a church, in between leadership in a church, and I can cause division. I can set it down in between nations and cause division amongst nations with a small wedge. It was his prized possession. And so Paul is painting a real vivid picture here of how God’s love for us is so tight. He’s so committed to us that nothing can wedge its way in between us, but that doesn’t stop the enemy from trying to wedge his way in to cause us to move away. God isn’t going to pull away from us regardless of what we do, regardless of how bad our week was, regardless of what we’re going through. God isn’t going to pull away from us. It’s us that pull away from him. And the enemy works strategically, endlessly, tirelessly, trying to force a wedge between God’s people and what he truly has for you. And it’s amazing how this can come up. Three days ago, I was at Shopper’s Drug Mart. Seems innocent enough, doesn’t it? I was purchasing just a few things and I gathered them and I walked up to the cash register. Well, there was no humans around anywhere. So I looked and all there was was the self-checkout. So I started to proceed to the self-checkout and I put the first one up there and, you know, I looked at the thing that said start. So I hit start and then it said scan. So I scanned my first thing and it went from red to green. So I thought that meant go. So I put it over into the part where the bags are. Now I looked up at the screen to scan my next thing and it was asking me all kinds of things. Do you want to donate? Do you have an optimum card? Do you have all these other things? I go, no, no, no, no, no. Just let me finish my order. So I went back and I scanned the next thing. So it went from red to green. I thought that was go. So I put it over on the other side. I look back up and there’s all those prompts again. I go, what is going on? And so I went over and I put the third thing through. The fourth thing had a coupon on it and I said, well, how am I going to scan that? There’s no barcode on it. How am I going to scan this? And it says, need cashier assistance. Great. I need a human. So I started to walk around looking for a human after going through all this. Found a human. This human couldn’t help me. So they found another human that could help me. They came up to the cash register. And so we’re standing there and we grabbed this one. She entered in the little code, put that over. I grabbed the last item and put that over there. But I noticed that the first one, even though it went from red to green, it didn’t show on the list. And I thought, oh, that one didn’t show up. This little voice popped up in my head and said, that’s okay. Just let it go. I thought, where did that come from? I haven’t thought about ever taking that. I wasn’t trying to steal hair gel. I was just like, where did that come from? I said, no. And I pulled it over and I said to the girl, I said, did this make the list? I said, I scanned it, but it didn’t show. She said, no, it’s not on there. So I put it on there and finished it off. But that’s how the enemy wants to wedge its way in to our lives. Just small little things, right? Because when we think back at some of the things that we excuse, where’s that dividing line? Where is it okay? Is it okay to take a, you know, $9 hair gel, but it’s not okay to take a $90, you know, piece of jewellery? Is it okay to tell a little white lie, but it’s not okay to tell the bigger white lies? It’s okay to hold something back from a partner or a friend or a loved one, but it’s not okay to hold back other things. Where’s the dividing line? And I’m not here today to try to, you know, talk about righteousness and being, you know, no, but it’s just deciding in ourselves, if we’ve allowed these wedges to come in, to pull us away from integrity, to pull us away from truth, to pull us away from what God really has for us. One of the things that I noticed is that as we go through these times where we’re looking at different things and these different things have, it gets a little bit more difficult to look at ourselves sometimes in the mirror. If we allow these little things to slide, like if I would allow that little $9 bottle of hair gel to slide, you know, at nighttime, when I was brushing my teeth, I would go, and you stole that $9 bottle of hair gel, right? I would be remembering, and I’m rehearsing that. And so oftentimes, those are the wedges that come between us and our self-esteem, our self-confidence. We look at it and go, oh, well, God can’t really love me because I did take that $9 bottle of hair gel. I did say that about Susie. I didn’t stand up for so-and-so, and I allowed that to come in. But spending time and just saying, look it, we don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to be, you know, godly saints with our shiny halos going all the time, right? Because none of us can do that. But we have to recognise what this scripture is really saying. There’s nothing that can separate us from the love of God. But yet, things come up in our lives, and sometimes we say, well, God can’t love me because this is happening, right? It goes back to the like and love thing. Just because bad things are happening, just because unforeseen circumstances are happening in your life, doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love you. It could be the process that God has taken to deepen that love. When we look at what the disciples went through, we look at what the early church went through, it wasn’t because God didn’t love them. It was just because the outward circumstances were trying to destroy that love, were trying to sever that love, were trying to get in there to continue to pull it apart. But when we step back and we say, okay, is this really true? That’s where it really hits. We have to look at scripture and just say, is this truth? Is this true about me? Is this true about my situation? Is it really that simple that God’s love can’t be separated from me, even though I’m going through some crazy circumstances, crazy situations? One of the most challenging things that we’ll ever do, I think, is being able to look at ourselves in the mirror and say that we like ourselves, say that we have confidence in ourselves, say that we love ourselves, right? We can tell all kinds of people on the outside world. We can tell people that we work with, tell people that we live with, tell people all around us that we love them, we support them, we care for them. But when we look at ourselves in the mirror, what do we see? We see the old stories, don’t we? We look at those times where we allowed things to slip. And sometimes it’s ourselves that talk us out of the love that God really has for us. We allow those wedges to come in because of our past experiences, because of the past things that we’ve gone through. Rather than recognising that we have freedom to come and stand in His presence and ask for forgiveness. And He’s faithful and just to forgive us. And that we can pick up and move on, knowing that anything that we’ve done, nothing that we’ve done, nothing that we’ve thought of can separate us from the love He has for us. He’s so deeply committed and so deeply woven to us that nothing can separate us. And I love that part, especially about the wedge. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us in Christ’s love for us? We need to understand that nothing can. But we can give ourselves, we can cause ourselves not to accept it. When we think about some of the language and some of the terms and some of the things that we say to ourselves, we would be slapped if we said it to somebody else. Right? Like, I’ve called myself stupid. I wouldn’t dare call anybody else stupid. But we use that kind of language with ourselves. We can fall short in our attitudes towards ourselves. And that’s what causes that separation. What I want to do is I want to reread Romans 8, but I want to read it in a personal voice. So rather than saying us, say me. Rather than saying them, say me. Make it personal. And as we read this, I want you to really reflect and just say, does God’s love really exist that deep for me? We’ve heard this expression a number of times, likely, that, you know, if we were the only person on the planet, God still would have sent his son to redeem us. Right? We’ve heard those expressions. But it’s not until we start to personalise scripture that we can actually begin to get the picture. So let’s reread it. And when I say let’s reread it, I mean let me reread it. And what I want you to do is just imagine that it’s you saying it to you. And if it’s helpful, close your eyes. If you doze off, that’s okay. Somebody will wake you up. But just close your eyes and just imagine those words and just let them wash over you. So if we read it in a personal way, it would be this. So what do you think? With God on your side like this, how can you lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for you, embracing my condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own son, is there nothing that he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for me? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even point a finger? The one who died for me, who was raised to life for me, is in the presence of God at this very moment, sticking up for me. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between me and Christ’s love for me? There’s no way. Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in scripture. Scriptures that say they kill us in cold blood because they hate me. I’m a sitting duck. They pick me off one by one. None of this fazes me because Jesus loved for me. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing, nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable, absolutely nothing can get between me and God’s love because of the way that Jesus, my master, has embraced me. It takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it, when you begin to read it and say, me? But that’s how personal this passage is, that it’s meant for you and I to recognise that God’s love cannot be separated from the things that we do through the week, the things that we’ve done through the month, the things that we’ve done through our past, the things that we’ve done over and over and over again. We can beat ourselves up saying, why can’t I ever get this right? Why do I keep tripping over the same thing? You know, as Paul said, the very thing I don’t want to do, I end up doing. Every time I turn around, that thing is there. Same as me at that checkout. I had never thought about stealing anything forever and all of a sudden it’s like, let that slide. Just take that. It’s not your fault. I had another experience like that where we were travelling up north to go and see our son and daughter-in-law up there. And we were at a town about eight, nine hours away. We stopped into the dollar store. And as usual, we’ve got into the dollar store and we’re looking for little things to take up for the girls, our granddaughters. And we gathered a basket full of things. And as typical, we left all the recyclable, reusable bags out in the truck. Been there, done that. Yeah, I know we all got a collection of a hundred of them at home and none of them seem to be where you want them to be. So the dollar store knows that these things are going to happen. So they keep stacks of them right beside the checkout. And so we grabbed one and started to, we scanned it. Again, I thought it was scanned. And we started to put everything through. We proceeded. And as we’re walking out, out of the mall with all of our goodies in our brand new purchased bag, I recognised that 99 cent bag did not get on the list. So what did Jim do? He didn’t just let it slide. He said, I got to go back. I said, I took this bag. I said, I can’t. Mary’s like, it’s okay. You know, they expect that. That’s why they put them. No, they put them there with a scanner to scan through to pay for them. So I went out to the truck, emptied everything into the truck, took the bag back in and said to her, I said, this is what happened. I explained what happened. She said, oh, I don’t know how to fix that. Nobody’s ever come back and said that they took a bag that didn’t pay for. So I have to scan the bag, charge you for the bag, then refund you for the bag. I said, well, that’s a lot of work for 99 cents. And so she found, finished, found a way to get around it. And we were able to scan it and I could pay for them. And off we went. The point is that those things are going to continue to come up. But if we remember that everything written in scripture was for us personally, that it takes on a whole new meaning as we go through it. That it’s not something, a passage that we just read over lightly and just say, oh, that’s really cute. That’s really nice. That would be good to, you know, put on my list and work on that. But no, it’s one of those things that we’re encouraged to continue to do, to continue to look at. So I want to encourage us through this week to continue to look at ways that you can not only personalise scriptures, you’re reading through scripture, put I, me, mine, put those words in there as you’re reading through scripture and allow it to take on a whole new meaning. But I want to encourage us not to be afraid to look in the mirror. None of us is ever going to get it right. None of us is ever going to be perfect 100% of the time. As much as we try, as much as we want to put on that persona, we know that we’re going to slip. We know we’re going to trip. We know we’re going to fall. We know we’re going to stumble. We’re going to know we’re going to get back up again. But nothing that we do today, tomorrow, or in the future can separate us from the love that God has for us. No situation, no circumstance, no illness, no sickness, no obstacle, no challenge, no struggle, no struggle in a family, no struggle anywhere can separate us from the love that God has for us. And as we step into understanding that and having confidence in that, it will change the whole dynamic of the situation. We look at some of the underground churches that are happening around the world, in Russia, in China, and other places, India. They’re thriving because they get it. They get that the love that God has for them has nothing to do with the circumstances going on politically, economically, structurally, anything around them has nothing to do with that. But as a North American church, sometimes we forget about that. Sometimes we think, you know, if it’s too hot, oh, God doesn’t love us. The carpet’s starting to fade in the kitchen. All right, God just doesn’t care about me anymore, right? We don’t have enough bank account at the end of the month. Oh, God just doesn’t love me anymore. None of those things has anything to do with the love that he has for us. But we can allow them to be the wedge and the thing that separates us because the enemy would like nothing more than for you and I to sit back and say, see, told you, God doesn’t love me because my family’s falling apart. God doesn’t love me because I lost my job. God doesn’t love me because this situation’s happening in our country. God doesn’t love me because XYZ. But recognising that that has nothing to do with the love that he has for us. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for reminders, just simple reminders that your love never fails. There’s nothing that can separate us from that love, even though some days we just don’t feel that love. Sometimes we just don’t want to express that love. Nothing separates us. Nothing can separate us from the love that you have for us. I ask that you would help that to register in each one of our hearts today.

by Jim Hetherington https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/05154947/August-2-Sermon.mp3 Genesis 32:22-32 Jacob Wrestles With God 22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. 28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,[a] because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” 29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,[b] saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” 31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel,[c] and he was limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) I was going to mess up for Alexander and put a name tag on it and say Mark this morning, but I thought that wouldn’t be fair to him, so I left that off. But I was thinking during the, as we were kind of going through worship and the sound was cutting out and different things, I was reminded of a time I was down in Nicaragua on a worship, on a mission trip, and we were at this place in the evening and it was storming and the power went out. So when you’re down in the middle of nowhere and the lights go out, the lights go out, like everything was out. It was complete darkness, there was no light coming anywhere, no microphone, no nothing. And so I did what any good preacher would do. I just started to breathe from the diaphragm and just projected even more and I continued to preach even in the darkness. And it was to my amazement when the lights came back on, everybody was in tears. So obviously it was in that moment that God just wanted me out of the way for a little while so he could do what he wanted to do and it was just a tremendous experience. So regardless of technology, regardless of everything that’s going on, we will get the message out. We will continue on. And so this morning I want to travel around a little bit. We’re going to check in on somebody on a road to Damascus. We’re going to check on someone at the edge of a river, forcing all his family to flee and get away. But I wanted to start with sharing a story that just happened to me recently. Just a couple weeks ago, I secured a contract with a company and got a deposit from them and took it and put it in as I usually do. Just put in the ATM and put the money in there and didn’t think anything of it, right? There’s no restrictions on my account for the amounts I put in and move around and all that stuff. So I didn’t think anything of it until the next day when I went to take those funds and get some materials and project stuff to get going on it. I didn’t have access to the money. And I thought, well, that’s odd. So this was Friday, of course, so I couldn’t get a hold of the bank. So I let it go for the weekend, figured I’ll touch base with them Monday or Tuesday and see what’s going on. I figured, you know, a human just needs to get the piece of paper out of the machine and process it. So I checked a couple days later and still no. I was told by the manager, as I was explaining my situation, that Jim with the bank, not just our bank, but the banks in general are moving away from paper checks. They want to go to e-transfers. They want everything electronically now. So it’s not like they’re punishing you, but they’re taking and holding any cash or checks. They’re holding it for five days and clearing. Even it could be cleared tomorrow, but they’re going to hold it for five days. I said, well, if I come down and take the check and get it certified, would that help speed up the process? Doesn’t matter. It could be a certified check or check written on a paper towel. It has the same weight with the banks now. And I thought, well, isn’t that interesting? You know, I’ve got all of this in my account, but I can’t access it. I can’t get to it. And I got thinking about how it is with our prayer lives, with our spiritual lives, right? We’ve got access to so much, but we don’t know how to get to it. Some of the stuff is on hold. Some of the stuff is being held back on, it seems, right? How many have ever had this dialogue in your brain? You think, well, that’s good for someone else, but it’s not good enough for me. Other people are successful in the Christian church, but not me. Other people get healings and get blessings, but you know, that’s not for me, right? So we hear those different things, and we don’t think we have access. But indeed, we do have access through Jesus. We have access to everything. But sometimes it just seems like everything is held back. And oftentimes we’ll see that through stories, through scripture, where blessings were held back for a time and a season until the person got through a situation, came to repentance, did something. There was something in their life that God was teaching them and taking them through. So I wanted to look at a couple of stories. One is Jacob. We’re going to read about him in Genesis 32. I don’t know, do we have screen now, or am I just reading it? Oh, we do have screen, right? That’s great. So it said this. It said, that night, Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his 11 sons and crossed the ford at Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, let me go for his daybreak. But Jacob replied, I will not let you go until you bless me. The man asked him, what is your name? Jacob, he answered. Then the man said, your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have wrestled with God and with humans and have overcome. Jacob said, please tell me your name. But he replied, why do you ask my name? Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called that place Peniel, saying, it was because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared. Then the sun rose above him, and he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore, to this day, the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched with it. So we’re not going there with the hip sockets and with the displacement and stuff like that. But I wanted to go into the story of what brought Jacob there. You know, I think Jacob came to the end of his rope. Literally, I mean, it was the end of the land. There was only a river behind him. He was running from his brother Esau, whom he had cheated and manipulated and done all kinds of crazy things. And Jacob had done that through his entire life. He had manipulated and controlled and done all kinds of different things to accumulate his wealth, to accumulate the things that he had. And here he was at the edge with his brother in pursuit, with a few hundred men in pursuit of him, and he’s passing everything over the river to get them to safety. But he stayed there. Then it says that he wrestled with a man all night long. Now, tradition says that it could have been Esau’s guardian angel that was holding him back and wrestling with him throughout the night. Regardless of what it was, he was wrestling all night long. Now, I don’t know about you, but I did a little bit of wrestling in high school. And doing a five-minute match, that was enough. Like, I mean, you’ve got two opponents locked in, 100% energy, trying to hold them from going anywhere. So you’re trying to hold them and not allow them to get any position on you. They’re holding you and not trying to let you get any position, but you’re still trying to get a position and go on for a few minutes. That’s exhausting. After I’m done for five minutes, I’m quite happy to sit and watch someone else go through a match because it just takes so much energy. So here’s these guys that have wrestled through the entire evening. Now, it’s interesting that as daybreak was coming, the angel just touched his hip and it was over. He could have done that five minutes into it, but he let it wrestle through the entire situation. And how many times have we gone through things in life where we’re wrestling with things? We’re struggling with things. We got challenged. You know, there’s challenges coming left and right, and we don’t understand it. We continue to go through these different things, and it’s almost like we’re wrestling with God to stand our position, to make clear what we want to do or what we’re trying to do. And I really believe that what Jacob had to do was God was wrestling everything out of Jacob. He was wrestling Jacob out of Jacob. And sometimes we come to that place where you and I, we come to that end where we just have to sit and just say, I can’t fight God anymore. I’m tired of just trying to defend my position. I’m exhausted trying to keep up this prasad and trying to keep up this righteous attitude, these righteous positions. And sometimes God has to take us to the end of us before he can step in and do what he wants to do. Imagine what our lives would be like if we could access all that we could access, all that we have access to in the kingdom. Imagine what the kingdom would look like if God could wrestle out of us our stubbornness. I mean, I’m all for sticking to it, right? We all want to stick to it. We always want to see things through to the end, right? They say that failure is just a success that ran out of time. I mean, think about the diets we start, right? We start a diet. We’re doing really good. Time is going on. We’re resisting those potato chips. We’re just carrying on. And all of a sudden, somebody in the family opens up that bag of chips. We get a waft of that salty, greasy goodness. And we just say, oh, just this one time, I’ll take a couple of chips. And so that success becomes a failure because we’ve given in to the time. And we can think of that with financial goals. I’m going to put this away and I’m going to save up to buy this new Mercedes Benz. And we’re saving and saving and saving and we go, well, the Chevette will be okay because I’d really like to have that in-ground pool in the backyard. So we compromise and we end time. So failure is just a success that’s run out of time. But if we continue in time, we’ll continue to grow in successes. And Jacob was running out of time. His brother was closing in and he was running out of real estate. But he stayed there to defend his ground. And it was during that wrestling that he actually received the blessing of God. Because I think during that moment, he had that opportunity to reflect on the journey, reflect on his life. Anybody been in a room like that or been in a position like that where all of a sudden you’re reflecting going, well, yeah, I did this and that really caused this to happen. I made this choice and made this decision and that really caused this to happen. And then we reflect and all of a sudden now we’re not blaming God. We’re taking responsibility for it. Now God can move us forward into something brand new. Let’s have a look at Paul. In second Corinthians, we read this. To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations. Remember that line. There was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about the weaknesses so that Christ, Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecutions and difficulties. For when I am weak, then I made strong. I love that, that first line where he says he kept me conceited from these surpassingly great revelations. I mean, just think about it. The Bible that we read and we study and we get sermons from, that we hear teachings on, that scholars have studied for centuries. Paul was writing that stuff. He was getting those revelations from God in that moment and, and scribing all those things down so that we would have it for future tense. So, so he was getting these amazing revelations. I remember in another mission trip, Oregon, I went down and my wife and I, we had taken about 15 or 16 trips into Central America over the years, always taking high school students, building teams, all kinds of stuff going on. One year we decided we just wanted to visit the missionaries and visit the area by ourselves. So, just the two of us went through the airport and it was, it was terrible withdrawals because as we were going through, we kept looking around waiting for everybody else to catch up with us because we had never gone through an airport without having a team following us. So, we went down there and I had a sign with my wife. If we were at a service, I would look at her and I would just kind of give her the nod and she would know to take out her notepad and start taking notes. This was before, you know, smartphones. And I did that because oftentimes we would get down into Nicaragua, we get down in these areas, we thought we were just going for a visit. We thought we were just going to hang out with the missionary couples and, you know, have coffee in the morning and sit around and relax. Oh no, they put us to work. So, I was preaching and teaching and then to put these, you know, these conferences together at the last minute where we had 30 or 40 pastors and now I’m teaching a and I had nothing prepared, I had nothing with me. So, everything was fresh and new and so that’s why I had to look at Mary and go and, you know, write that down because that’s a new one and that’s probably, you know, very similar to what Paul was experiencing. It was all these fresh revelations were coming in and he was capturing and writing them all down. But to keep him from getting conceited, to keep him from getting too puffed up, God gave him this thorn in the flesh. And there’s all kinds of stories of what it was and how it was and all that. That doesn’t matter. The point is that he had something that God reminded him that he was just human and it kept him humble. When I was younger, I got hired by the safari park just outside of town here and I went through the process through the training, the zoological keeper training. So, I went through that for the summer, got hired on and I stayed there for the season and the next year I was called back and then I was appointed a supervisor of the lion, tiger, cheetah section. And it was really quite an appointment. It was a real anointing time. We were gathered around a particular thing, the supervisor and a couple of other workers. The main head game warden came in and he looked at the supervisor and said, you’re out. And he looked at me and said, you’re in. And that was my appointment. That was my appointment as supervisor. He’s out, you’re in. And I became supervisor in that moment. And then the next year I was appointed the assistant head game warden. So, when my boss was off for his two days, I took his responsibility for the entire park. With that came this really nice truck, the coveted truck of the park. And I was just so proud of myself driving that truck around. It roared, it soared, it looked so cool. And I remember parking it and there was something broken at the side of one of the pathways. So, I got out of the truck and went over and I picked it up and I looked back at that truck and I went, oh, that truck is so cool. It’s so amazing. It’s so coveted. Everybody wants to be in this truck. And as I went to step into the truck, I stepped up a little bit too high, cracked my head across the roof of the truck as I was going in. I remember sitting there seeing stars and I was wise enough in my young, early Christian walk to go, I better pay attention to that, not get too conceited, not get too puffed up. God was just knocking some sense into me as it were. And I’ve needed that from time to time. I don’t know if anybody else here, I’m sure none of you have needed that be hit over the head with a two by four anytime at all in your journey. But, you know, occasionally I need to be knocked over the head. And that’s what was happening with Paul here. That was what’s happening with Jacob. He was at the end of his rope. He came to the end of himself. And Paul, as much as he pleaded with God to take this thorn from him, he said, no, my grace is sufficient. I need to keep you under control. I need to keep something in line so that you don’t get too puffed up and too crazy because what you’re handling is so big and it’s so amazing. It’s so powerful. It’s going to affect generations and centuries to come. So what you’re writing is too valuable for me to let you go along with your conceited attitude. And he kept it in check. Sometimes we go through experiences and we just say, I can get through this. I can handle this. You dig in a little bit deeper. It could be stubborn nature, could be pride. I think there’s a difference between being proud and being prideful, right? Being proud of our achievements or accomplishments and things that we’ve done. I think that is a good thing. Being proud of our children, our grandchildren, being proud of our partners. I think that’s a good thing. But the prideful thing, that becomes an arrogance thing, doesn’t it? That becomes a look at me, like me hopping into that truck, getting cracked on the head. That becomes a look at me. And what God is wanting is the attention, the glory, the honour. And how often do we try to rob that in our Christian life, saying, look at me, or rob them in our professional lives, going, look at me, or rob them in our personal lives, going, look at me, rather than giving him the glory in all the situations. So oftentimes we hit the end of those roads. And I think it’s God wanting to wrestle us out of us so that we come to a new place of humility, a new place of just honouring him for who he is. I’m reading a good book right now. The guy’s name is Jeff Henderson, I think. Sorry, I wrote his name down. I always forget his name. And I wrote it down here somewhere, and now I can’t find it. Yes, Jeff Henderson. And he’s written this book called Know What You’re For, F-O-R. And this guy’s had the opportunity to work with some amazing organisations over the years, like Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta Braves, and most notably, he’s worked with North Point Church in the U.S. And they’ve got about 50,000 members and about 150 locations, satellite locations, across the world. So they’re doing okay as a church. How many would say a 50K membership, that’s not a bad deal, right? So he was able to work with them. But he’s challenged them with two questions. And he challenges every organisation, every individual, every church, with two questions. What do you want to be known for? That’s the first question. And it’s something that we can ask ourselves. What do we want to be known for? What do you want to be known for? What does Central want to be known for? The companies that we create, or maybe we operate, we founded, what do we want that company to be known for? And the second question is the opposite. It’s what are you known for? So one is your vision, your purpose, your mission, your goals. What is it you want to be known for? The other is what are other people saying about you? When you leave the room, what are they saying when you’ve left the room? Do they miss you? Are they glad you’re gone? What are they saying about your company? Would they deal with you again, or are they glad the contract’s done? What are they saying about your church? Are they glad to be here, or are they glad to leave? I jokingly said that when I first stepped out of leadership, Mary and I, we had to step out of the church that we served at, because every time we showed up, they tried to put us to work. I mean, they forgot, they didn’t get the memo that we no longer served in leadership. And they every time we’d show up, we could show up four months later, and they would try to put us to work. It’s like, wait a second, I don’t work and serve here anymore. So we ended up leaving, looking around, and we started going to a number of churches in the region. And I’m not going to name any names, and I drop any of those things, but we jokingly said we were going to start a secret church shopping network. We were going to start a company called Secret Church Shoppers. We went to some horrendous churches. You think they’re all welcoming and goosebumpy like this place? No. There were some churches we were happy to leave. I hate to say it, but we were just as excited to, we were more excited to leave than we were to go. So the questions are really important to look at. Because even as individuals, we have a brand. A brand isn’t what you say about yourself. A brand is what others say about you. So what is your brand? What are people saying about you when you’re not in the room? When they’re on the telephone talking about you, what are they saying? And you say, well, Jim, it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care what other people think. Well, you should. Paul again encourages us to live such good lives among the pagans, among the non-believers, that on the day of judgement, they’ve got no excuse. They can’t look and say, well, Nancy was just such a hypocrite. I was just never showing the truth. I was never exposed to the truth. It’s all Nancy’s fault. No, you need to live such good lives among the pagans that when they stand before God, they can’t say it was Alexander’s fault. It was central church’s fault. They’ve got no excuse. So I want to encourage us to look at the circumstances and the experiences that we’re going through right now and ask ourselves, is there too much of me that I’m carrying in this situation? Is there something in this situation that I need to let go of so that I can allow God to rise up? It’s all about the humbling, the submissive thing. And I know we don’t like that word, submissive. We don’t like to use that word because it has such a negative feeling to it. If I’m submissive to somebody, it means I’m under their thumb. I’m under their control. It’s actually the opposite. When we submit to someone, what we’re doing is we’re pushing them up. We’re elevating them up so that they become the very best version of who they are. We respect and we honour them for who they are. And as they become their very best, guess what? We become our very best, because as we follow in them, we grow in greater successes. And as we honour God and lift him up, now we can begin to follow him. And as scripture says, success will follow us all the days of our lives. As we begin to walk in what he has for us, rather than creating something and saying, God, I’m going to do this, this, and this, and I want you to bless me. That’s why I entitled today’s thing, titled today’s sermon, are we directing or are we praying? Because oftentimes we get in our prayer closets and we’re just directing God. Well, God, you’re going to do this. God, you’re going to bless this. God, I need you to provide this. I need you to give me this. Rather than coming to the end of ourselves and saying, God, what it is that you want? I would suggest as individuals, we need to come to that place. And certainly as a church, we need to come to that place. As we look to hire on new leadership, we need to ask ourselves and be clear on what do we want to be known for? And we need to be honest and look around the neighbourhood and say, what are they saying about us? Because when we can align what we are for and align that with the person that we’re going to bring in and leadership, then the church will go to that next level. I had an experience in a church that we used to attend when I was younger. Mary and I, when we first got married, attended the church and we had a great pastor. He was a wonderful man. And a couple of years into going to that church, he felt called to move off into some other place a little bit further north. And so he was moving away. So the church started looking for a new pastor. And they thought, well, you know, this guy laid some good foundational stuff here. So we’re ready to go to that next level. So we want a really scholarly person. We want someone with some real deep education that can take us in and teach us the deeper things of God. So they hired someone that could do that. I built a relationship with this pastor over the years when he served there. And he was telling me that when he first served there, the first few weeks, he realised that what he was teaching was way up here. Their comprehension was way down here. It was nowhere near what they thought it was. So he brought it down a level. Only to discover a few weeks later that that wasn’t far enough. He had to bring it down a little bit further. So they thought they were ready for meat rather than milk, but they weren’t ready for the meat. And so he had to adjust it. And there was great tension between that leadership because their visions didn’t align. What they were for didn’t align. And so I want to encourage us to to come to a place, and I’m hoping that, you know, as leadership is here or maybe watching this on recording afterwards, that they would consider to look at what you were for. What do we want to be known for? Because then we can align with what it is that God is doing rather than trying to make up a wish list and saying, God, you fill this, you do this, you get this, and everything will be peachy. You know, Scripture tells us to pray without ceasing. How many of us could pray without ceasing? I know after 10-15 minutes, I’m running out of stuff. I’m really stretching. You know, we start the same prayers. Oh, thank you for today. Thank you for the food. Thank you for the blessings. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for our church. Thank you for all these things. After a few minutes, like the wrestling of Jacob, we run out of things. But as we go deeper and begin to rely on the Holy Spirit to feed us with ideas and feed us with things to pray, then we come in alignment with what God is wanting to do and is doing. And what a difference that would make as we come into that vision. In Proverbs 3, 5-6, it says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him and he will make your path straight. Wouldn’t that be a great way to live? In all our ways submit to him. Does that mean that he doesn’t want us to go back to school and get that degree? Probably not. Maybe not. Does it mean that he doesn’t want us to have this relationship with this particular person? Who knows? But as we submit things to God, as we surrender to him, we’re just saying now, okay, God, this is where I am. Where do you want me to go? And that’s a whole different trajectory. Now we’re not being like Jacob, feeling that we’ve got people in hot pursuit because we’re always creating sticky messes everywhere we’re going. We’re not trying to push through something, maybe physical, maybe mental, maybe relational, that we need to just lay down and just look at honestly and just allow God’s truth to wash in there. So I want us to encourage us with that. And I’m going to end a little bit earlier just because it’s so warm in here. I just want to be aware of that. So let’s pray. Father, we come before you this morning and Lord, if there’s a little bit of a Jacob in us, we ask your forgiveness. We just want to confess. If there’s deals we’ve made, if there’s things that we’ve created, if there’s ways that we’ve pursued that aren’t of you, that aren’t of your highest, we ask that you would reveal them to us this morning. Even now, Lord, as we pray, I ask that you would put your finger on one or two of those things that maybe we’re walking to. Maybe it’s a relationship thing. Maybe it’s a financial thing. Maybe it’s a relationship thing with you. Maybe it’s a church thing. Whatever it is, Father, we just want to lay it down before you. And we ask that you would speak into that. For those that are wrestling with physical challenges right now, we ask that you would speak into those. Sometimes physical things can be your way of getting our attention so that we will spend time with you. Whatever it is, Father, we ask that you would bring your Holy Spirit, allow your Holy Spirit to just speak to those things in our hearts, in our lives. And we confess them to you. We ask your forgiveness for relying on our own strength, relying on our own knowledge, our own understanding, thinking that our way is far better than yours. Father, we ask your forgiveness for being like a lump of clay, but laying in front of you, dictating what you’re going to create, what you’re going to mould, what you’re going to shape. We just want to give you permission today to mould us, to shape us, and to use us. And we surrender. We choose to get out of the way and allow you to work. And for those of us here today that have never surrendered completely to you, Lord Jesus, we want to take a moment and just pray. We’re going to pray and confess our sin to you, confess that we have been trying to earn our way into your kingdom. We ask your forgiveness. And we turn to you, Lord Jesus, and we accept you and receive you, and we choose to make you Lord of our lives. We ask that you would rule and reign in our hearts.  

by Mark Gaskin https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/29112723/July-26-Sermon-1.mp3 1 Kings 3:5-12(NIV) 5 At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” 6 Solomon answered, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day. 7 “Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. 8 Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. 9 So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” 10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Matthew 15: 21–28 The Faith of a Canaanite Woman 21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” 25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. 26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs.” 27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.” 28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment. Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Alexander:Our speaker this morning is the Reverend Mark Richardson. Mark is a long-term friend of Central. We’re so glad that you’re here, Mark. Mark is retired from Westside Galt and from Central Church in Brantford, and we are so glad that he’s here. No, no, we don’t have to correct Alexander. I’ve messed up his name several times. Mark Gaskin: And, you know, if I had to be confused with somebody, Richardson is the one I’d want to be confused with. He’s a great guy, the other Mark. I don’t blame him. There’s something about this presbytery, and Lynn Pennington knows, for a while, there were four, there were at least four ordained ministers in the presbytery of Waterloo West. Mark Lewis, Kitchener, Mark Gedke, also in Kitchener, Mark Richardson, and Mark Gaskin. And the clerk of the presbytery started to give us nicknames. I have no desire to share with you what my nickname was. So Richardson is fine, Alexander, fine. I did also want to mention that I’m wearing my Camp Kintail shirt. They’re coming to get Alexander. When you confuse me, that’s when I, 911. I’m wearing my Camp Kintail shirt because I know this congregation has a deep relationship with Camp Kintail on Lake Huron. I know Jonathan and Teresa, the co-executive directors of the camp, have worshipped with you, have led worship. Every time I’m up at camp, and I go up several times a year, there is their Sunday suppers. There are also, it’s also Kirk and the Cedars. In fact, there’s one today, four o’clock, they worship in the chapel. And then there is a gathering in McDonald Lodge, afterwards a meal in McDonald Lodge. We often go up, myself and our adult children and their children, will have for several years gone up for family camp held in August. And when I mention to Jonathan and Teresa that I have preached at Central Cambridge or will be preaching at Central Church in Cambridge, they always say to me, please say thank you. They are deeply grateful for the support they receive, monetary and otherwise, especially the men’s ministry, that goes up in, is it twice a year or else, spring and fall, and just does the work that needs to be done on that acreage. There’s always something, and especially, it used to be that they would close down for the winter. So there was this spring cleanup and the fall shutdown. It’s a year-round camp now. So there’s always, there’s more to be done. And I know Jonathan and Teresa and the board at Camp Kintail very much are grateful for the support they receive from Central Church Cambridge. Our first reading is from 1 Kings 3, beginning at verse 5. King David has passed and his son, King Solomon, has come to the throne. It’s been a few months. And this is the dream that King Solomon has. At Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, ask for whatever you want me to give to you. Solomon answered, you have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day. Now, Lord, my God, you have made your servant King in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours? The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have you asked for the death of your enemies, but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. And our good news reading for this morning from the gospel according to Matthew, and this is what I’ll be basing the message on today. Matthew tells us that Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman came from that vicinity, came to him crying out, Lord, son of David, have mercy on me. Your daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession. Jesus did not say a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, send him away for she keeps crying out after us. He answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. The woman came and knelt before him. Lord, help me, she said. He replied, it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord, she said. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table. Then Jesus answered, woman, you have great faith. Your request is granted. And her daughter was healed from that very hour. Amen. In the name of the creator, the redeemer, and the sustainer. Amen. Once upon a time, a woman came to a Presbyterian church. Let’s call it Knox St. Andrews on the Speedy Grand River. And she asked him, would you do a funeral for my dog? I’ve had this dog many, many years. A wonderful companion to me. I would like to have a funeral for my faithful dog. Well, the minister was more than a little taken aback. And he replied with a certain tone to his voice, well, I couldn’t possibly conduct a funeral for a dog. Perhaps you should try one of the other churches in town. The woman was polite, thanked him, and started to leave. And then turned back and she said, oh, just so you can help me when I visit these other churches. Is $500 enough of an honorarium for this type of funeral? And would I make that out to the minister or to the church? There was a pause. And the minister says, you didn’t say that the dog was Presbyterian. I’d be happy to help. I’m glad you laughed. And I am quite sure that many of you have heard that joke before. But it’s easier to tell that joke than it is to deal with this passage. We’re hearing Jesus speak in a way that we have not heard before. And we don’t hear very often. Because there’s nothing funny about these words. It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. Those words land with a thud. They sound harsh. They sound insulting. And if we’re honest, they don’t sound very much like the Jesus that you and I like to talk about. And it really comes down to that one word. Dog. Now, today, in our culture, in our time, dogs are beloved companions. They sleep on our couches. They have birthday parties. We sentimentalise our dogs in ways that would have seemed very strange to the ancient world. And let’s not just think about the companionship that dogs offer. Let’s think about service dogs. And how that area has expanded over the years. To include that they once helped disabled or impaired individuals. And now they do a host of activities with that population. And let’s think about the working dogs. That search for explosives or drugs. Canine dogs that protect you and I. That was not the role of dogs in Jesus’ time. They weren’t pets. They didn’t do anything. They were scavengers, mostly. Wild, dirty animals that wandered the streets. Feeding on refuse and garbage. To call someone a dog, even in our time, it’s not really a compliment. But we have a different understanding. But to call someone a dog in Jesus’ time was an absolute insult. No compliment whatsoever. Scripture reflects this attitude over and over again. The prophet Isaiah says, Israel’s watchmen are blind. They are all mute dogs. They cannot bark. They lie around and dream. They love to sleep. Dogs were representations of things that were unclean, unworthy. They were outsiders. They did not belong to any household, any group. And that is exactly what was meant when Jesus said, made that statement. A Gentile woman comes pleading for healing for her daughter. Jesus answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. She kneels before him, Lord, help me. And then comes the response that shocks us. It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. The point is unmistakable. A Jewish rabbi who abandons his own people in order to minister to outsiders, to Gentiles, well, that would be like a parent taking the food off the table that’s feeding his children and throwing it on the floor, giving it to animals instead. There is no way to soften those words. Preachers try to. I have tried to in the past. I have said, well, it’s a test of faith for the woman. I mean, after all, later in the story, he says, you are a woman of great faith. Others suggest that he was drawing out her courage by this statement, perhaps. But why not let the story just speak in all of its uncomfortable honesty? Why not hear what was being said? Matthew doesn’t hide the difficulty. He lets us hear Jesus exactly as he sounds. And maybe that honesty is important. After all, this is the same Jesus, the same Jesus who makes the statement. Elsewhere, he welcomes sinners and tax collectors. This is the same Jesus who touched lepers. It’s the same Jesus who blessed children, forgave enemies, and sat down at tables where respected people would refuse to sit. Those are the stories we know well. That is the Jesus we know well. Why can’t Jesus be as complicated as humans are, as you and I are? We’re not one person or one thing. We are complicated. That’s our nature. Why can’t Jesus be the same way? So when Jesus speaks this way in this occasion, we are unsettled. And perhaps that’s where the gospel wants us to be at that time. The mystery of the incarnation, the mystery of Jesus’ birth, is that God became truly human. We say that in our prayers, in our creeds. That’s what we read in the gospels. Jesus had a human side. And every once in a while, we see it. He doesn’t just appear to be human or pretend to be human. Jesus was born a first-century Jewish man. He lived within a culture that drew sharp distinctions between Jew and Gentile, clean and unclean, insider, outsider. The incarnation, the birth of Jesus, meant that God entered a real culture at a real time in history. He came into the real world with all of its assumptions and boundaries. So sometimes, maybe not very often, but sometimes we might be tempted to see Jesus sort of floating above his time and place, floating above human history, floating above human temptations, drawbacks, limitations. Untouched by the world around him, Matthew will not let us do that. He shows us that Jesus is genuinely human. Yes, divine, without doubt. That’s what Easter is all about. But in this moment, genuinely human. This is a Jesus who listens. This is a Jesus who responds, who grows. And that might be one of the most hopeful things in the gospel. Because if Jesus is truly human, then he engages people as real people do. Most of us do not easily change our minds. I know my wife marks on the calendar the number of times I change my mind. At the end of the year, it’s not an exercise I like to go through. Because I think I’m Mr. Flexible. That’s one of the nicknames I’ve given myself. Clerk of Presbytery never used it, but I think of myself, Mr. Flexible. Oh, sure, I listen to people. Give me a well-reasoned argument, I’ll change my mind. We cling to assumptions. We hold on to prejudice. We protect the boundaries that comfort us, that we can be sure of, that have always worked for us in the past. Sometimes we are reasoned with. Sometimes we can be challenged. Sometimes we can be confronted. And sometimes we change our minds. But lots of times we don’t. We cling on to what we know. But look carefully at this story. The woman refuses to walk away. She doesn’t become angry. She’s not confrontational. She doesn’t become defensive. She just answers Jesus with remarkable wit and astonishing faith. Yes, Lord. I hear what you say. You don’t throw food from the table to the dogs. Yes, Lord. Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table. It’s one of the finest, most faithful responses in all of the New Testament. She accepts Jesus’ image. She accepts that characterisation and then turns it inside out. Is there enough bread for God’s children? Sure there is. Then surely there are enough crumbs for everyone else. If God’s grace is truly abundant and eternal, then no one needs to ever be hungry. Her faith is bold. Her persistence is courageous. Her love for her daughter is unstoppable and unmistakable. And Jesus hears that. He hears all of that. And he allows himself to be changed by that encounter. He says, woman, great is your faith. And her daughter is healed. This is not a story about someone winning an argument. It’s a story about the kingdom of God becoming larger than anyone could have imagined. Even larger than when Jesus’ own disciples, they saw that Jesus was expanding it, making it bigger. But this was still new territory. This is not what they expected. The boundaries begin to fall. They continue to fall. The table continues to grow wider. The invitations become larger. The grace of God spills over the edges. It cannot be contained. Winston Churchill once said, to improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often. Whether Churchill intended it or not, those words echo something deeply Christian. Faith is not stubborn certainty. Faith is open to the spirit of God. Faith is allowing ourselves to be surprised. Faith is discerning that God’s mercy is always bigger than we could have imagined. And this is where the gospel finally meets us. Because the question is no longer simply whether Jesus changed. We can debate that in coffee. The fellowship time. We can have that discussion. The question is, can we change? Can we allow ourselves to learn something from someone that we might have dismissed? Can we allow a stranger to help us grow in our faith? Can we admit that an outsider might reveal something about God? History suggests that’s how the Holy Spirit works. Again and again, God speaks through people that we don’t expect God to speak through. God surprises us when God speaks through foreigners and children and the poor and the outsider. Perhaps the greatest miracle in today’s gospel is not that the daughter was healed. That is a miracle. But that has happened before. Perhaps the greatest miracle is that was a conversation where God once again welcomed more people into God’s world. Which was always God’s intent. But this was God’s Son doing the welcoming. The work of welcoming people into God’s world is not finished. That’s one of the reasons that Central Church exists. That’s your mission statement. It should be every church’s mission statement. A place where God’s people are welcomed into God’s world. People still build walls. I know that. We still divide people into insiders and outsiders. People who spend time discussing who belongs and who does not. I am happy that that’s not a characteristic of this church. That every time you gather around Christ’s table, you hear this message. There is enough bread. There is enough grace. There’s enough mercy. There’s enough room. The table belongs to Christ, not to us. And everyone whom Christ welcomes is already welcomed. Every person. Without exception. Amen. And so be it.

by Rev. Mark Gaskin https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/22220536/July-19-Sermon.mp3 Isaiah 44:6-8 The Lord, Not Idols 6 “This is what the Lord says—    Israel's King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty:I am the first and I am the last;    apart from me there is no God.7 Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it.    Let him declare and lay out before mewhat has happened since I established my ancient people,    and what is yet to come—    yes, let them foretell what will come.8 Do not tremble, do not be afraid.    Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?    No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.”   Romans 12:17 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Matthew 13:24-30 The Parable of the Weeds 24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. 27 “The owner's servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?' 28 “‘An enemy did this,' he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?' 29 “‘No,' he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'” Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Three passages of scripture to share with you this morning. An Old Testament reading from Isaiah, and then a short verse from Paul’s letter to the Romans, and then a passage from the New Testament on which the sermon will focus. From the 44th chapter of Isaiah, this is what the Lord says, Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty. I am the first and the last, apart from me there is no God. Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come. Yes, let them foretell what will come. Do not tremble. Do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other rock. I know not one. Two short verses from the 12th chapter of Romans. Do not repay anyone for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. And from the 13th chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells a parable. The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while everyone was sleeping, the enemy came and sowed seeds among the wheat and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner’s servants came to him and said, Sir, didn’t you sow good seeds in your field? Where then did the weeds come from? An enemy did this, he replied. The servants asked, do you want us to go and pull them out? No, he answered, because while you are pulling out the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time, I will tell the harvesters, first collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned. Then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn. Then he left the crowd and went into the house. Amen. Let us pray. God of wisdom, your thoughts are not our thoughts and your ways are not our ways. As we listen to the scriptures, send your Holy Spirit to grant us understanding of what you desire and fresh resolve to do your will. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. I may have mentioned this in past years. Much of the mid to end part of June, so last month, you will find me in a strawberry field. From mid-June to the end of June, I make four to five trips to Brantwood Farms. It used to be their old location on Linden Road, now their new setup on German School Road. I go out there four or five times, pick the strawberries. Sometimes I have a grandchild with me to help, so it takes longer. I take those berries home, clean them, and then make freezer jam, strawberry freezer jam. It’s really good. Now I’m pausing here to look out there and say, how many of you are thinking, oh no, he’s going to bring out a trophy and talk about it. No, no, I have never won a trophy for my strawberry jam. Now you’re thinking, well, is it placed in the top 10? No, no, I’m, is it the people’s choice? Yes, people who are related to me really think it is wonderful strawberry jam. And in July, this month, from about the beginning of July to now and maybe another week, I’ll go out to Jerry’s Berries. I love that out in Cope Town, Jerry’s Berries. It’s part of lots of hostas. And I pick my raspberries there and I take that home and I make raspberry freezer jam. And I know some of you are thinking, oh, now he’s going to bring out the trophy for No, no, no, no trophies, no top 10. But again, it’s definitely the people’s choice amongst people who are related to me. The strawberry field on Old German School Road and the raspberry patch in Cope Town are beautifully well-maintained fields. Tom and his family at Brantwood Farms and Glenda and her family in Jerry’s Berries, clearly it’s work that begins the previous fall, obviously not so much during the winter, but in the spring, the fields are, well, you do whatever you do to those patches. Because when I go out to pick that fruit, it’s beautiful. The berries are beautiful. It’s just wonderful to be out there. But there are still weeds. Even though all that has been done to prevent it, you still see some weeds in amongst the bushes or off to the side. It’s part of growing things. Any vegetable gardener, any flower gardener will tell you that. Where you’re growing things, weeds show up. And that’s one reason I like this parable. Because even in a perfect strawberry field, even in a perfect raspberry, even in a perfect flower garden, even in a perfect vegetable garden, weeds are still there. You don’t want them there. You did everything to prevent them from being there. They’re still there. That’s why I like this parable. Because it seems to me to answer a question that Christians, especially when we get old enough to ask this question, why in a perfect, why in the world that God designed, why in a world where God loves us, why is there evil in this world? You and I aren’t evil people. God wants no one to be an evil person. God has given us everything we need in this world. What are good, God-fearing people supposed to do about all the evil in the world? That may not be the question that was asked directly to Jesus. And it may not be the question Jesus is answering directly. But it is the question behind the parable of the wheat and the weeds. Jesus tells this story. A farmer sowed good feed in a field. But while everyone was asleep, an enemy, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and slipped away. When the wheat sprouted and produced grain, the weeds appeared as well. The servants came and asked the owner of the field, sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did all these weeds come from? That is a good question. Later in the chapter, Jesus explains the parable. I didn’t read that part. I knew you saw where this was going. He explains the parable. He says the field represents the world. And the world is weedy. It’s corrupt. It’s not the way God intended it to be. No one has to convince us of that. We watch cable news. We listen to the radio. We scroll through social media. And we hear more stories than we want to hear about violence and war, abuse and greed, injustice, poverty, hatred, discrimination. We shake our heads at the enormous gap between the way the world ought to be and the way the world is. Where does all this evil come from? That’s a question answered in other stories in other parts. But what we are to do about that, that’s what this parable answers. Now we might think, as the servants did, well, let’s get out into the field and pull up all those weeds by its roots. That’ll get rid of it. It seems like a practical suggestion. And it is one, I’m pretty sure speaking to the gardeners in the group, it is one you actively employ in your vegetable garden and in your flower garden. But not in this parable and not in this field. Because the owner of the field says, no, no, we’re not going to pull them out. Let both grow together until the harvest. In this story about evil in the world and God’s response to it, Jesus is telling us something that might be difficult to hear. For now, God does not intend to uproot every evil thing immediately. God is not asking us to uproot every evil thing that we see immediately. God’s plan, at least for the present, is to let the wheat and the weeds grow together. That’s the parable. That’s the parable Jesus tells. That is not easy to accept. But that’s the lesson of the parable. Even though the world is full of weeds, even though there is corruption and wickedness, it is not our calling to pull out every evil weed ourselves. Why? Well, we remember what the owner told the servants. Do not pull up the weeds, because while you are pulling up weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Oh, okay. We are reminded that there is always a chance that we will do more harm than good. However unintended, there are situations where we might do more harm than good. The part of the reason, and the listeners would have understood this in Jesus’ time, they would have got this right away because of their, because it’s a small villages and connected to the rural area around them. If they weren’t farmers, they had they had family members who were farmers. They knew that Jesus was talking about a specific kind of weed and wheat. The Latin name is here. I don’t know why I put it here. I can’t pronounce it. So I’ll just, the, the weed is commonly called Darnell. And it’s an unusual grass that looks remarkably like wheat in its early growing stages. It’s easy to mistake this weed for wheat as it’s growing. And that’s why Jesus used this parable and this example, because it fits into the life that you and I live. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference between good and evil in the early stages. Oh, I know later there’s lots of times we can tell what’s evil, but I’m talking about those times when we don’t have all the information and we, we don’t really understand what’s going on. Sometimes in trying to pull up with what we think is a weed, we discover too late that we’ve damaged the wheat. There’s another part of this story that’s always intrigued me. And again, it’s one of those parts of the story. It’s just, it’s barely a sentence. It’s said, and then there’s no more comment on it, but it’s there for a reason. The enemy sows the weeds and then slips away, leaves. The enemy is no longer part of the story. We, we, the enemy doesn’t feel the necessity to come back and sow more weeds, water the weeds to do anything else. The enemy only had to plant the weeds. The damage is already done. There’s no need to stay around. Scatter a few seeds of darkness, scatter a few seeds of fear, scatter a few seeds of misunderstandings, and let good people give in to fear and give in to darkness and give in to misunderstandings. And they’ll do the damage as they pull up the weeds and harm the wheat. Scatter enough weeds so that we become anxious, fearful, angry, impulsive enough, and then see what happens. That’s why the enemy slips away, doesn’t have to do anything more. Unless, unless the owner says, wait, be still, trust me, let them grow together until the harvest. Let them grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to gather the weeds to be burned and gather the wheat and put it in to my barn. The owner doesn’t like having weeds in the field. What, what farmer, what grower, what person who’s trying to nurture seeds into, into beauty and growth and fulfilment, what, what grower would want weeds in their field? No, no, no grower. The farmer, the owner simply has a different way of dealing with them. He has a different plan. And that’s, that’s sometimes frustrating to servants who want to act now, who want to be impulsive. And the owner says, wait, be patient. I have a plan. Jesus wants us to understand that this is God’s way of dealing with evil. Not always immediately, but he will deal with it finally. This is way, God’s way of dealing with evil. Not partially, but God’s plan is to deal with it completely. And Jesus would know. It’s not like the world that he came into was any better or worse than the world that you and I are living in right now. His world was full of weeds. The disciples saw that. He saw that. His disciples saw that. They were witnesses to poverty and injustice, oppression, disease, prejudice, violence. They saw it all. They experienced it. Jesus and his disciples, they experienced everything that you and I have to deal with. The problems were real. Yet Jesus did not call on his followers to wage war against every weed. Instead, he called them to live faithfully as wheat. And perhaps that’s, not perhaps, that is still our calling today. In a world full of weeds, perhaps the best strategy that we can adopt is the one that Paul said in the 12th chapter of Romans. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. The field is still full of weeds. I admit there’s some days that that’s all it seems to be full of. It’s not true, but that’s what it feels like sometimes. But it’s also full of wheat. There is in fact more wheat than weeds. The weeds just get our attention. God has not abandoned the field, nor has God forgotten the harvest. So let us live as children of the kingdom, trusting the gardener, sowing the good seed wherever we can, and waiting in hope for the day when Christ will make all things new. Until that day, we overcome evil, not by fear or hatred, but by lives shaped by the love of God. Amen. And so be it.

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/14130359/July-12-Sermon.mp3 Genesis 25:21-34 21 Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. 22 The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. 23 The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb,    and two peoples from within you will be separated;one people will be stronger than the other,    and the older will serve the younger.” 24 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 25 The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau.[a] 26 After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau's heel; so he was named Jacob.[b] Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them. 27 The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. 28 Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. 29 Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. 30 He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.[c]) 31 Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” 32 “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?” 33 But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright.   Matthew 13:1-9 The Parable of the Sower 13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.” Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Well, thank you, Alexander, and thank you for all those who make me feel welcome on a Sunday morning in your own special way. I mentioned this last week. There’s a lot of good natured teasing that goes on, and that’s simply because, as Alexander shared, I’ve known the congregation a long time. I guess it was 2009, I came to what was then St. Andrew’s Church, just up the hill, and a few years later, St. Andrew’s and St. Giles amalgamated and became Westside Presbyterian Church, and stayed for several, well, more than some years after that, and retired, I think it would be about four years ago, but still active in ministry. I enjoy attending churches, church services on those Sundays. I’m not preaching elsewhere, but one of the things I look forward to is being here for a few weeks in the summer. So, again, thank you to Aubrey and the session for the invitation. Two readings this morning, from the book of Genesis and then from Matthew. Let us hear God’s word. Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebecca became pregnant. The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, why is this happening to me? So she went to enquire of the Lord. The Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb, and two peoples within you will be separated. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger. When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The boys grew up, and Esau became a skilful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebecca loved Jacob. Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, quick, let me have some of that red stew. I am famished. That is why he is also called Edom. Jacob replied, first sell me your birthright. Look, I’m about to die, Esau said. What good is a birthright to me? But Jacob answered, swear to me first. So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. From Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 13, that same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying a farmer went out to sow his seed, and as he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, but because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among the thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. And still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear. Amen. In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer. Amen. We are told earlier in Genesis that for twenty years Isaac and Rebekah had prayed for a child. Finally their prayers are answered, and the miracle of conception came. But it wasn’t smooth sailing. Even in the womb, the twins were struggling with one another. It’s a foreshadowing of what would continue on throughout their whole lives. It leads Rebekah to ask, while the twins are still in the room, it leads Rebekah to ask, why is this happening to me? And God answers, two nations are in your womb. One people shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger. We’re not told within the text how Rebekah would have received this news. It helps us understand what is about to unfold in foreshadows what’s taking place. But it wouldn’t have been immediate help at that time, and especially that latter phrase, the elder shall serve the younger. As I say, it’s not said in the text, but Rebekah must have said to herself, oh this does not bode well, because that’s not the culture. That’s not the custom. Firstborn, the elder, that’s the head, and the younger siblings serve the elder, but that’s not what Rebekah is told. Esau is born first. Jacob falls close behind, grasping at his brother’s heel. Even that small detail foreshadows the life that Jacob will lead, always grabbing and holding on. In fewer than 15 verses, the twins grow from newborns to young men, yet very little has changed in their lives or in their personalities. They were different in the womb, and they are different outside. Esau is impulsive. He’s driven by the moment, never thinking things all the way through. Jacob is patient, calculating, and as we see, he’s very opportunistic. With that understanding of who these twins were and their personalities, we come to the latter part of the story that I read to you. Esau comes in from the field, exhausted and starving. Let me have some of that red stew, I am famished. Jacob replies, sure. First, sell me your birthright. Sell. You’re firstborn. I’m to serve you. Sell it. Not even give it. Sell it to me. Esau, again, in the moment, not thinking it through. I’m about to die. What good is a birthright to me? And just like that, Esau gives away the birthright over a bowl of lentil stew. Now, I know something about the persuasive power of a good bowl of food. I know I’ve mentioned, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before. After all, I’ve been coming here for some years. I’m sure I’ve mentioned the trophy I received for cooking chilli. Just happen to have it here. I have it at home, but if there’s a display case, I’m happy to leave it later. Yes, the People’s Choice Award from 2003. Okay, a few years ago. The Rotary Club of Brantford Sunrise, the ninth annual chilli cook-off, June 21st, 2003. The People’s Choice. Not just awarded by, the people spoke and gave me and my team this, I know the power of a good bowl of food. Now, some of you are saying, wait a minute, 2003, anything more recent? Funny you should ask. I thought I heard somebody ask. 2020, just before the world changed, we had in February of 2020, we had our annual Super Bowl contest up at Westside. Super, S-O-U-P-E-R. And yes, if you are asking, I placed in the top 10 of that competition. There were nine of us in entry, but that still places me in the top 10. A good bowl of chilli, soup, stew, that can certainly be tempting. But it’s probably not worth however good it is. It’s not worth your inheritance, your birthright. Neither brother comes out of this encounter looking particularly good. Esau acts impulsively with little thought for the future. Jacob sees his brother’s weakness. He sees it and he exploits it. Neither brother comes out looking good. And let us not completely overlook the parents. It says within the text, the father favoured one child and the mother favoured the other. It’s not just the brothers are not looking good. The family is not looking particularly good. Later in the book of Genesis, Jacob will deceive his own ageing father as well. So where does this ancient family story, and I know many of you would be familiar with this story, where does that ancient story about a long ago family meet us today in our circumstances? With our families. Well, when we think about our families, most of us still feel the pressure to convince the world that everything’s fine. Most often that’s certainly the image we would like to project in a natural way, that everything is okay. Family is normal. Everything’s under control. But when we’re honest, and we can be honest with each other at times and with good friends, when we’re speaking a little more honestly and it feels safe to do so, we know better. We know families can be complicated. We know relationships can be strained. Old wounds can linger. Misunderstandings happen, and sometimes as they’re explained, the situation does not get better. I’ve offered enough explanations over a misunderstanding that I have successfully made the situation worse with my explanations. Sometimes the people we love the most are the ones who can hurt us the most. And yet, let’s get to this, and yet God is still present. God is still there in the midst of that, in the midst of the strain, and the misunderstanding, and the friction, and the tension. That’s one of the great gifts of the stories in the book of Genesis. The very first book, the book that not only emphasises our ongoing, our original and ongoing relationship with God, but also talks about the families that are within that relationship with God. The Bible never pretends that God’s people are flawless. The Bible never pretends that families are not without their challenges. Quite the opposite. Again and again, God chooses to work through people. Again and again, God chooses to work through families that are imperfect. At the heart of Genesis is the inspiring truth that God accomplishes God’s purpose through some of the strangest, most awkward, most hard-to-understand families imaginable. When God looked across the world for people through whom to bless the nations, that’s where that phrase comes from Genesis, when God looked for people through whom to bless the nations, God did not choose people who seemed to have it all together, who had no flaws, that had never known challenges. Sometimes it looks like God would choose the B team, that God would choose not the best and the brightest, but God would still choose them. Families that argue, families that failed, people who doubted, people who made terrible decisions. God would still use them, people just like us. Many of the stories in Genesis make the very first book, as I said, of God’s story with God’s people. Many of the stories make this wonderfully clear. We do not have to be perfect before God can use us. We do not have to have everything figured out before God can bless us. We do not have to belong to a flawless family before God can call us to be a blessing to others. The good news is that God does not wait for perfect people. The good news is that God is faithful even when we are not. If God could work through Isaac and Rebecca, if God could work through Esau and Jacob, if God could bring blessings to people, to nations, to the world through that family, then surely God can work through us and ours. You’ve heard me say in the past, and I mean it with the utmost sincerity, Central Church has a lot going for it. And I hope this doesn’t shock you. But it’s not because you’re perfect. I’ve never heard anyone claim that about Central Church. What I have heard, it’s a group of people who care about each other, who care about the neighbourhood they’re in, who care about the community that you’re part of. Not perfect, but perfectly caring people. This is a church that God has, that God can, and God will continue to work through. Because by the grace of God, we are exactly the kind of people that God has always used and loved to use. People, people just like us. Amen, and so be it.

by Rev. Mark Gaskin https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/08152605/July-5-Sermon.mp3 Psalm 16 A miktam of David. 1 Keep me safe, my God,    for in you I take refuge. 2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;    apart from you I have no good thing.”3 I say of the holy people who are in the land,    “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”4 Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.    I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods    or take up their names on my lips. 5 Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;    you make my lot secure.6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;    surely I have a delightful inheritance.7 I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;    even at night my heart instructs me.8 I keep my eyes always on the Lord.    With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;    my body also will rest secure,10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,    nor will you let your faithful one see decay.11 You make known to me the path of life;    you will fill me with joy in your presence,    with eternal pleasures at your right hand.   Luke 9:51-56 Samaritan Opposition 51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them[a]?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them. 56 Then he and his disciples went to another village. Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Guest Speaker – Rev. Mark Gaskin No, Alexander, it was all, it was all done in in good humour, and I appreciate this time of rebuttal. When I was here previously, actually what I’ll do is follow up on an announcement that that Alexander made. You’re watching online, that’s wonderful. I hope you feel part of the worshipping community today. If you are watching us because you’re looking for a church to attend, this is a great church to come to. The worship service begins at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning. You can show up a few minutes after that, but as a courtesy to the production team and to the praise band, you may want to show up, especially if you’re the preacher. You may want to show up a little bit before that, but you will be, no matter what time you show up, you will be warmly greeted and made to feel welcome by this wonderful community of believers. Our first reading is Psalm 16, some selected verses. Protect me, O God. I trust in you for safety. I say to the Lord, you are my Lord. All the good things I have come from you. You, Lord, are all I have, and you give me all I need. My future is in your hands. How wonderful are your gifts to me, how good they are. I praise the Lord because he guides me, and in the night my conscience warns me. I am always aware of the Lord’s presence. He is near, and nothing can shake me. And so I am thankful and glad, and I feel completely secure because you protect me from the power of death. I have served you faithfully, and you will not abandon me to the world of the dead. You will show me the path that leads to life. Your presence fills me with joy and brings me pleasure forever. And from the New Testament, from the Gospel according to Luke, Chapter 9, a story that is unique to Luke. Matthew and Mark and John do not record this event. And I think I partly understand why. It is very low-key. There’s no healing. There’s no miracle. There’s no parable. There’s no teaching. But I believe, clearly, I believe it delivers a very strong message, which I will develop in the sermon from Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 9. As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus set out for Jerusalem. He sent messengers on ahead who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him. But the people there did not welcome him because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples, James and John, saw this, they asked, Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them? But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village. Amen. In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer. Amen. I will let the production team know I’m just walking over here. I’ll be back to where I’m supposed to be in a minute. I think they’re just happy to see that I’m here. But it’s within the nature of human beings that we have conflicts with each other, disagreements. There’s lots of adjectives for it. Fights, conflicts, disagreements, friction with each other. Some say it’s innate, part of our psyche. We are animals and animals fight. Some say it’s learned behaviour, that if we see violence around us and it becomes normalised, then, and this can happen even when we see that it’s harmful to others and even harmful to ourselves, we still see it as a part of life. So this is the old debate, right? Nature versus nurture when it comes to conflict. We’re not settling that debate this morning, but we’re going to look at it because we see it in the ninth chapter of Luke near the end of that chapter. What do we fight about? Well, we can fight about everything and anything, right? We can have disagreements over politics, religion. I’m trying to think about, for a moment there, I was trying to think, what don’t we fight about? That list is shorter. We have disagreements about lots of things. Our differences can be racial, religious, nationality. We know that there are long standing disagreements between the ancient religions of our world. Jews versus Muslims, Muslims versus Christians, Christians versus, it goes on. Even within a Christian community, there can be disagreements. There are long historical disagreements between nations of the world. You can’t look really at any part of the world that hasn’t, isn’t currently facing some kind of conflict or does not have conflict in its past, a non-ancient past. As a country, we’ve had conflicts even within North America. So, conflict, fight. We do it everywhere. It can be about anything. It can happen at any time. But all these conflicts have one thing in common, as different as the cause where they take place, as different as they are, they still have one thing in common. Somebody is the bad guy. Some group of people are the bad people. They are wrong. I am right. That’s always at the source of the conflict, regardless of what it’s about, where it takes place, when it takes place. Somebody’s wrong, somebody’s the bad guy, and somebody’s right, the good guy. It’s interesting how I’m doing it that way, isn’t it? Somebody there is the bad guy, and somebody is the good guy. So it is with this awareness that we approach today’s gospel. It’s not a well-known story in the New Testament, as I said earlier, that it’s unique to Luke. It’s the kind of story that can be forgotten, as I said, no miracles, no parable, no teaching. The story goes like this. Jesus is up north in Galilee. He’s getting ready to go south to Jerusalem, and he had to pass through the land of Samaria. The Jews and Samaritans did not like each other, and that dispute, conflict, fight went back hundreds of years, long before Jesus was even born. They did not talk to one another. They didn’t intermingle. They did not intermarry. So who’s the bad guy in this conflict between Jews and Samaritans? Well, it’s James and John, to make it very clear. It’s the other guys. It is the Samaritans. Jesus is going south, going through Samaria. He had sent people ahead of him to make arrangements. They were not welcomed, and then Jesus, as he came into the village, was not made to feel welcomed. The two brothers, James and John, who are part of the Twelve, when they came to realise this, they got upset, to say the least. We’re not surprised that James and John are the two disciples that act this way. They are called Sons of Thunder. We hear that designation about them earlier in the Gospels. They have thunderous personalities. They have thunderous prejudices, and they clearly have thunderous tempers. They go to Jesus, who is in the village now, and say, Master, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them? That seems like an overreaction. They were just not made to feel welcome. They weren’t threatened. They weren’t mocked, ridiculed, but clearly hundreds of years of prejudice and hatred are coming to the forefront, and this slight, this disrespect, this unwelcome attitude has just sent James and John right over the edge. Lord, let’s call down fire from heaven so it’s coming from the right place. Let’s call down fire from heaven and not warn them, not teach them a lesson, destroy them. What happens next is remarkable. It’s subtle. It’s one of the reasons I think this passage is not amongst the best known. Jesus rebukes them. That’s all that’s in the Gospel. Jesus rebuked them, and then what happens next is even more remarkable. Jesus and his disciples went to another village. That’s how the story ends. Jesus rebukes, and then he and the disciples went on to another village. I have some sympathy for the disciples. I’ve been angry in my past. I got upset and angry as a kid, as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, as my middle age, as a senior. I think there is a little more calmness in my senior years, but I can still get upset and angry. But when I look back at all those years and look at the present time, I know there is not one time when I made a good decision when I was angry. I made decisions when I was angry, and I regretted every one of them. I never made a good decision when I was angry. In the confidentiality of the Central Sanctuary and our online community, I will admit, maybe once or twice or ten times, I thought, you know what would teach these guys a lesson or this guy a lesson? Let’s bring down a little fire from heaven and, well, not destroy them. I have some conscience. Singe them just around the edges just so they know who’s on my side. But that’s not what Jesus wants from us. Jesus doesn’t want us to seek revenge. Jesus doesn’t want us to seek punishment, to see them destroyed or singed. So what are we supposed to do with that feeling that’s in us? They’ve done us wrong. He’s done it. She’s done it. They’ve hurt. I’m disappointed. I’m angry. What am I supposed to do with those feelings? Jesus wants you and I to go to another village. That’s what he did. That’s what he asked his disciples to do. Going to another village is not an act of defeat. It’s not giving in. Going to another village is an act of faith. The psalmist said, you will show me the path that leads to life. The path that leads to life is not a path that allows bitterness to determine the direction of our lives. The path that leads to life does not allow old wounds, old hurts, old arguments, old prejudices to keep us captive, to keep us where we are. The path that leads to life sometimes leads to another village. The path that leads to life trusts that God can do more with forgiveness than we could do with retaliation. Jesus could have called down judgement. That certainly was within his power. And that is what James and John wanted him to do. But Jesus chose a different path. He chose compassion. He chose mercy. He chose peace. He chose to keep moving toward the work that God had given him to do. And that’s his invitation to us. It was his invitation to the disciples. Let us go on to another village, to the next village, to a place where we will be welcomed. That they’ll hear us, listen to us. So there may be somebody in your life today that you’ve thought for days or weeks, months, sometimes years, but that’s the other guy. That’s the person who hurt you or disappointed you, offended you, opposed you. Jesus asks us to lay down the desire for revenge, to let go of the burden of resentment, and continue to walk towards the path that leads to life. The world teaches us to ask, who’s the bad guy? Who’s hurt me? Who’s made me angry? The world teaches us to ask that question and to stay there looking for the answer. Jesus asks us, how can I love my neighbour? The world says, destroy your enemies. Jesus says, love your enemies and pray for them. The world keeps score. Jesus offers grace. My prayer for you this morning, the week, months to come, is the same prayer I’m saying for me right now. Give me the courage to move on to another village. Give me the courage to seek peace rather than punishment. Give me the courage to see that I’m being asked to turn enemies into people I have compassion for. In doing any of that, there is a possibility that that changes the other person, but it definitely changes us. Amen, and so be it.

by Jim Hetherington https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/01220654/June-28-Sermon.mp3 Genesis 50:20 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 1 Samuel 17:47 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands.” Luke 24:16 16 but they were kept from recognizing him. Romans 8:18-28 Present Suffering and Future Glory 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that[a] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. 26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[b] have been called according to his purpose. Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Our speaker this morning is Jim Hetherington. He needs no introduction and we are so glad to have him as part of our congregation, um, and wherever Jim is. Regrets will come to each and every one of us at some point or time, and they seem to speak the loudest when it’s silent. When things are quiet, that’s when the voices of regret seem to speak the loudest. And regrets can come in small things and come in big things. It can be something small and simple like, I meant to bring some cereal and contribute to the food bank, I just kept forgetting. I meant to take a casserole to my neighbour to support and encourage them, but I just ran out of time. I got busy. Because we get busy, don’t we? And we can use busyness as an excuse for not doing things. Regrets can come in big things. Could be a decision that we made, a financial decision, an investment that we didn’t take advantage of. You come in a career choice, a relationship choice. Regrets can come in all kinds of shapes and forms. The thing they say about regret is that discipline, you know, doing something to encourage, to support, to grow, costs very little. The invoice that we get from regrets is huge, and oftentimes regret hits us when we can’t do anything else about it. I know that many people on their deathbed may be faced with regrets. I guarantee you that they’re not regretting that they can’t get up and go into the office and work on another deal. It’s likely a relationship. It’s likely someone close to them that they regret not investing the time. We just finished a series with Aubrey where he talked about Joseph. Now Joseph, he probably had a few regrets during that course of time. He probably regretted the way he shared that dream, that vision with his brothers. He probably regretted getting himself in a position where he was caught with Potiphar’s wife. There may have been a few regrets because the truth is it took a couple of decades for that entire process from the time he got that dream and shared it to the time that it actually came fulfilled. It was a couple decades. Would you agree that that’s a long time? That’s a long time to hold on to something. That’s a long time to be going through the process, to be going through the stuff. In Genesis 50 verses 20, we read this. Joseph said, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. He recognised that through that process, it wasn’t just the circumstances that he found himself in. He could see that God had a bigger picture. God had a bigger plan. So oftentimes we get caught up in circumstances, don’t we? Like I said, you know, we have good intentions of going and supporting and encouraging a friend or a neighbour, but we get busy. Life gets busy. But sometimes those excuses can get in the way and cause even more regret. I know for me, about 15, 16 years ago, I was going through a very busy part and a very busy time in my life and I wasn’t looking after myself. I had the excuse of I’m just too tired at the end of the day to look after myself, to go exercise. I’m too tired. I’m too busy to really eat well and to prepare extra meals. And we can use those excuses. I’m too tired. I’ve been chasing the kids or the grandkids all day long. I’m too tired to spend time reading. I’m too tired to spend time with my husband or with my wife. And we can use excuse after excuse, but all it does is pile up even more regret. Joseph found himself betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused, and forgotten in prison. Yet he recognised that God was using those circumstances. In 1 Samuel 17 47, we read another familiar story of David and Goliath. David heard about the battle that was about to ensue with the Israelites and the Philistines gathered on the front lines. And as was a custom in that day, they would send out their best warriors and they would duke it out to see who would win. And if it needed, they would go into a full-blown battle. But if it could be resolved just with the two very best from each side, that’s how they handled it. So Goliath came out. This big beast of a man came out, said, send out your best. And everybody quivered and shook and shaked. And I’m sure there was some regrets with some of those men in the army, thinking, I didn’t train hard enough. I wish I was stronger. I wish I was better equipped. I wish I would have bought that better Nike equipment last week when it was on sale. Here I am on the front lines with this poor equipment. But David heard of this and he wasn’t going to live with regret. He was going to stand and face the giant. And he went to Saul. He went to his brothers. He went to everyone and they’re like, you’re crazy. You can’t do that. You’re not equipped. You’re not trained. You’re not anything. They tried to put Saul’s armour on him. It didn’t fit. It’d be kind of like wearing, you know, clothes that are 10 sizes too big for you and trying to function in them. So he stripped it off. He said, no, he said, I know a sling. I know stones and that’s what I’m going to use. And when we read 1 Samuel 17, it said, all those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves. For the battle is the Lord’s and he will give all of you into our hands. That’s a pretty bold declaration to be making in front of a big beast of a man, a huge army. Here’s this guy with just his basic clothes on and a sling and a few stones. But the thing that David recognised is that it wasn’t the stone. We could gather scientists. We could gather all kinds of mathematicians. We could gather all kinds of smart people. And they could probably give us 20 reasons why that stone could not have done what it did. And we would all probably agree with it, right? The math is wrong. The angle was wrong. The trajectory was. The fact that it was just a small stone, it’s impossible. I mean, that stone would have to get past the shield bearer, right? Goliath, he was well equipped, but he had his own guy holding a shield in front of him. So it would have to get past that. It would have to get through that helmet. You’ve seen those helmets with the little pointy thing that comes down between the eyes, right? That stone would have to project through that. But David knew something. He knew that it wasn’t a stone that he was throwing. It was a name that he was throwing. It was the name that he knew that was behind that stone that was going to accomplish what he declared it would accomplish. And it did. He wasn’t focused on the circumstances. He didn’t care how big Goliath was. He didn’t care how much armour he had on. He didn’t care about any of those things because he knew behind him was a name that was greater than any other name. And sometimes we can forget that, can’t we? We can forget that. We’re on this side of glory. We know historically we see all of these stories we read. And we’re going to look at a few more, but we know all of these stories. It’d be kind of like, you know, I was thinking about that movie Back to the Future. You’ve seen that movie Back to the Future? It was about a young guy that was transported back into time and he got to see all the stuff that happened and then came back into the future, into time, and was able to live out things differently. But one of the guys got this almanack and the almanack had every sports team that ever won a championship. Everything that was ever anything it happened. And so he knew what was going to happen. And so being transported back, he knew what was going to happen in that time. And so this guy used the book incorrectly and bet on things and was very successful because he knew what the outcome was going to be. We already know what the outcome is going to be, yet sometimes we forget. Sometimes we forget and we just get so focused on circumstances, don’t we? And it’s hard not to get focused on circumstances. When politically we hear all things, you know, things going on crazily, we hear of robberies, we hear of murders, we hear of thefts, we hear of the economy, you know, tanking and all the different things that we hear. It’s easy to get stuck on circumstances. My challenge is, can we get to the place of getting our focus off of the circumstances and onto God’s perspective? Because that’s really what counts. And David saw that in 1 Samuel. Others were focused on their skills, their strength and ability, the circumstances, but David saw God’s perspective. He didn’t throw a stone, he threw a name. The rest of the army was fearful. I was thinking of Helen Keller. One of her favourite, her famous quotes is, fear, the best way out is through. Do you know what fear stands for? Fear stands for false evidence appearing real. But it can paralyse us until we become like Helen Keller and go through it. And then all of a sudden we realise, oh, it wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be. It’s kind of like, it’s kind of like the boogeyman, you know, when we’re little. Boogeyman never showed up when the lights were on, always showed up when the lights were off. Never showed up when our parents were home or when friends were over hanging out with us. It was always when it was quiet, nobody was around, right? The boogeyman never showed up when there was busyness going on, but when things were silent and quiet, all of a sudden. And it’s the same with our regrets. It’s the same with things, situations and times and points in our life. All of a sudden when there’s silence, all of those voices start to rise up. I know people that cannot go a day, they cannot be in their home and not have a television going, have some music playing, some background noise. Why? Because when it’s silent, those voices of regret, the voices of indecision, those voices seem to come up. Similar to the boogeyman when the lights go out. But the truth is that they’re false evidence appearing real. They’re just fears that we need to go through and face. In Luke 24, we read an account of a couple of people walking down the road. This is after Jesus was crucified, dead, buried. They thought it was over, right? The disciples had invested everything believing that Jesus was who he said he was. But when he was killed, crucified, and all of a sudden his body’s missing, they didn’t know what was going on. They said, well, we better just go back to what we know. And so many of the disciples, they went back to fishing because fishing is what they knew. These two were heading back to Damascus, and they’re just walking, just thinking about the circumstances, thinking about what’s going on. And Jesus comes alongside and walks along them, but the scripture tells us in verse 16, it says, but they were kept from recognising him. Interesting. They were so focused on the circumstances, they didn’t even realise that it was Jesus walking alongside with them, having a conversation. Sometimes we can get so focused on our circumstances that we don’t think our prayers are effective. Sometimes we can get so focused on our circumstances that if somebody says an encouraging word, it just goes in one ear and out the other, because we’re so focused on the circumstances. We’re looking at our bank balances. We’re looking at our broken down car in the driveway. We’re looking at the broken relationships that are around us. We’re looking at the economy and the positions that we’re in. We’re so focused on the circumstances, we don’t think that there’s any way that God could possibly use that for good. But yet when we look at it historically, we see over and over and over again how God has used things for good. And as they were walking along the road, they came to their location, and Jesus pretended that he was going to continue on down the road. And they go, wait a minute, wait a minute. It’s getting late. It’s getting dark. Why don’t you come and just hang out with us for the night? Let’s just have a meal together, and then you can set off in the morning. So Jesus agreed, and he goes in, and they sit down, and they have a meal together. And he took the bread, and he broke the bread. And then all of a sudden they looked at each other and went, wait a second. Something’s happening here. Something looks eerily familiar. My spidey senses are starting to tingle. There’s something about this guy that is familiar. And they recognised, and God opened their eyes, and they saw who he was. And then instantly he was gone. But he got their eyes off of the circumstances and onto his perspective. Jesus was right there, but they couldn’t see him because they were so focused on the circumstances rather than his perspective. Just because we can’t see God doesn’t mean that he isn’t working. Sometimes we just feel that, don’t we? I mean, we’re human. We can be real. We can be honest. Sometimes we just don’t feel that God is working. We don’t believe that God’s working because we’re so fixated, so focused. I was thinking about Jonah. I didn’t get a scripture for this, but don’t worry. There’s no scripture verse for this one. But I was just thinking about Jonah. I’m sure he had some regrets, right? God met him, said, Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh. He said, no way. I’m going this way. I’m out of here. I’m not going down there. And he completely disobeyed, went the wrong way, hopped on a ship, tried to take a cruise to get away from it all, gets thrown off overboard, and gets swallowed up by a big fish. Spends three days in a big fish. How many here, if you spent three days in a big fish, would have some regrets of your decisions? Right? Those would be huge regrets. I’m stuck in the belly of a fish. There would be huge regrets. But he gets a chance for redemption. He gets spit out onto the shore, and God says, head to Nineveh. I’m heading to Nineveh. And off he goes, and he does what he’s told. How about the woman that had the issue of blood? For 12 years, it said, she suffered with this issue. She spent everything that she had, all the doctors, all the specialists, everybody, and she didn’t get any relief. Nothing changed over 12 years. Then she heard about Jesus coming through. She knew of his reputation. She had heard the story. She had heard about the healing. She had heard about all the different things. And she said, this is my moment. I’m not going to regret and allow that to go by without taking my healing, without taking a miracle. And she crept up behind him and touched the hem of his garment just to get a healing. How many of us today, that if Jesus came walking in through that door, came down through all these aisles and went out through that back door, would get out of our pew and ask him for a miracle? Or would we just sit there quietly, wave, nod, you know, just be a little starstruck, and then regret that we didn’t step up, that we didn’t shout out what we wanted, what we needed, what we were asking for. Sometimes it’s our own dignity that keeps us locked in place. Sometimes just looking a little bit foolish keeps us locked in place, fearful of speaking out in that business meeting, fearful of speaking out in that church meeting, fearful of saying something to our children or to our spouse or to a neighbour or to a friend. We just sit with regret and just let the moment go by. In Romans 8, 18 to 28, this is the big one. We’re going to read this one together. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself would be liberated from the bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved, but the hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. So what’s Paul really saying here? It seems a whole lot, but really what he’s offering here is a message of hope. Paul is reassuring the believers that the present sufferings cannot compare to the eternal glory awaiting them. He explains that creation eagerly awaits this redemption. The Holy Spirit intercedes in our weakness, and God uses all circumstances for the of his people. That’s what Paul is saying here. Regrets come in all shapes and sizes, and the way to regret can be heavy, and it can be a real burden and a real struggle. The difficulty is getting our eyes off of our circumstances and viewing and looking at God’s perspective, because God can see through to the other side. It’s kind of like being in an aeroplane, an aeroplane over a highway, right? Imagine yourself in a car driving along the highway, and you’re trying to pass somebody on the highway, and you inch out a little bit, and another car comes the other way, and you zip back in again, right? And then you go a little bit further, and you go, okay, maybe I can try it again. You move out a little bit to see, and then, bam, another car comes down. And it’s like God is in a plane, and he can see the highway as long as it can possibly go, and he knows when we can pass. But we’re so focused on our circumstances that we can’t see his perspective. If we could tune into his perspective, he would say, okay, Alexander, it’s clear to pass. Go. And we could go. It’s the same in life. We get so focused on the circumstances, and we lose connection with God’s perspective. We think, well, I made that choice. I made that decision. I made my bed. I got to lay in it. There’s nothing God can do, nothing God will do. With that kind of attitude, you’re right. You’re right. If we focus on our circumstances and say, oh, it’s too big for God, you’re right. There’s nothing that can change. Nothing can happen. Nothing can ever change. You’re right. We could stay focused on that, and nothing would ever change. But if we will shift our perspective, anything is possible. How many believe that God is a God of the possible? Right? He is. He’s not the God of impossible. He’s the God of possible. We’re praying for a new leader in our church. It’s possible. We know that God is going to bring the right person at the right time, but it’s hard not to get stuck on the circumstances. I don’t see any clear candidates. I don’t see any clear thing, but when we change our perspective, it all shifts. If you take notes, I want you to write down these five words. If you don’t take notes, I want you to write down these five words. I want to encourage you. This is a side note. I want to encourage you to take notes. I’ve got a little black book, and no, it doesn’t have addresses and mean things about people. It’s a black book that I keep notes on, and I want to encourage you to have something, even if it’s a small little notepad that you can slip in your pocket. Women, you’ve got a guy’s beat. You’ve got purses. You can carry things in your purses. Just a little notepad. Back in the day, I used to write on anything and everything, especially when I was in the construction world. You could ask my wife. The collection of stuff that I had up in my office, I would have pieces of two by twelve, right? Just a chunk, two-foot piece of two by twelve, and with a marker, and I would mark down a note or a thought that I had. I would take it home with me. I would be scrambling around, couldn’t find anything. I’d rip open a paper bag and just pencil inside this thing. Cedar shims, anything I could get my hands on, too. You know, little children running by. Right, are you coming home with… No, I wouldn’t do that. But I would just write notes on everything, and I kept that collection for the longest time because I thought it was the funniest thing, and I thought, dummy, just get a little book. Carry a book with you. So that’s what I do, and I carry that with me, and I carry it until I fill it up. Then I put it on my shelf, and then I get another one, and I work on that one until I fill it up. So now I’ve got a collection of these little books that I just put little note things. And it’s a great time, you know, with laptops and iPads and all these different things. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t. This thing in between our ears is the greatest invention in the world. I mean, the capacity that we have in here is fantastic, but you can’t trust it all the time. Anyone notice that? How many have made a list, gone to the grocery store, forgot the list at home, tried to recall everything on the list? Did you forget at least one or two things on that list? Almost every time, right? We know that we can’t trust that thing, but if we write it down, we can trust that thing. So you can trust what you’ve written, but you can’t trust to remember everything. So I want to encourage you to write these things down. The first is regrets. Know that they’re going to happen. They’re going to happen. There’s going to be times where we don’t do the thing. As Paul says, you know, the very thing I want to do or don’t want to do, I do. The thing I know that I should do, the thing that I shouldn’t do is right there all the time. So we know that these things are going to happen. Regrets are going to happen regardless of how young we are, how old we are, how smart we are, how not so smart we are. See how politely I said that? But it’s going to happen. Here’s the thing about regrets. The second word that I want you to write down is repent. Just say, God, I blew it. I forgot to take that casserole. I forgot to bring the cereal again. I forgot to do this again. I forgot to put my tithe in. I forgot to pay that bill. I forgot to do this. I forgot to do that. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t train hard enough. I didn’t do anything. Just confess it. Say, God, I blew it. The next one is redemption. Trust is redeeming grace. Trust that he can use all things together for good. And trust that redemptive work that he’s doing. The fourth one is restoration. Know that he’s going to restore you. Know that as we confess those things, now we’ve gotten rid of the fear that it’s going to happen again. Now we can walk through it as Helen Keller says. And now we’ve, as we confess it, we can walk through in a different way. We’ve shifted our perspective off of circumstances onto God’s perspective. So trust in the restoration. And then the fifth and final one is rejoice. Just give thanks. Just be happy that you can and will get over those things. So that’s a simple formula to get over regret. Is that a good formula? Will you use that formula? I know we’re only human, and it’s going to happen. But here’s what I don’t want to happen, have happen. I don’t want us to be on our last breath, regretting all those regrets that have just piled up over the years, over time. Because the compound interest is not a good interest. It’s not something that you want to compound. Dealing with those things as you’ve done, maybe there’s some broken relationships that need to be restored in your life. Confess that now. Ask for God’s redemptive work. Allow that restoration to happen. Allow the rejoicing to happen while you’re still walking, living, and breathing. While there’s still breath in our lungs, we have the ability to change anything. As we confess it and give it over to God, shift our circumstances, shift out of the circumstances, and shift into his perspective. Does that make sense? So that’s what I want to encourage us with. I knew that today was going to be a challenging day because of the waft of barbecue coming in through the door. Anybody getting a whiff of that? I see that hand back there. Mr. I could eat six hamburgers. One of the things that’s challenging these days as a speaker, as a presenter, is the attention span is a little bit shorter. Attention span is a little bit shorter. Did I say that already? It is, but it’s just gotten shorter and shorter, hasn’t it? Those squirrel moments happen quicker, more frequent. Even for people that never suffered from squirrel syndrome, it happens. We get caught up in those moments, right? It’s just happened. But what you cannot compete with is a group of people that are salivating because they know a picnic is coming. They know a barbecue is coming, and then you get the aroma of that coming in through the building. That is unfair. That is unfair. So I’m going to finish so that we can get out and enjoy those burgers. Who wants to get out and enjoy a burger? All right. Now, while I got some hands moving, who’s going to begin to confess regrets? Not right now. This isn’t confession time, but I want to encourage you to look at those moments when those moments come up and say, okay, I know how to deal with that. All I got to do is confess it, and I can allow God’s work to begin in my life. That’s the start. That’s the beginning. And to begin to accelerate, or begin to propel, or begin to build momentum until everything that you do, God will begin to and continue to use it for good.

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/24232925/June-21-Sermon.mp3 Genesis 41:57 (NLT) 57 And people from all around came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph because the famine was severe throughout the world.   Genesis 42:1-20 (NLT) Joseph's Brothers Go to Egypt 42 When Jacob heard that grain was available in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why are you standing around looking at one another? 2 I have heard there is grain in Egypt. Go down there, and buy enough grain to keep us alive. Otherwise we'll die.” 3 So Joseph's ten older brothers went down to Egypt to buy grain. 4 But Jacob wouldn't let Joseph's younger brother, Benjamin, go with them, for fear some harm might come to him. 5 So Jacob's[a] sons arrived in Egypt along with others to buy food, for the famine was in Canaan as well. 6 Since Joseph was governor of all Egypt and in charge of selling grain to all the people, it was to him that his brothers came. When they arrived, they bowed before him with their faces to the ground. 7 Joseph recognized his brothers instantly, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them. “Where are you from?” he demanded. “From the land of Canaan,” they replied. “We have come to buy food.” 8 Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they didn't recognize him. 9 And he remembered the dreams he'd had about them many years before. He said to them, “You are spies! You have come to see how vulnerable our land has become.” 10 “No, my lord!” they exclaimed. “Your servants have simply come to buy food. 11 We are all brothers—members of the same family. We are honest men, sir! We are not spies!” 12 “Yes, you are!” Joseph insisted. “You have come to see how vulnerable our land has become.” 13 “Sir,” they said, “there are actually twelve of us. We, your servants, are all brothers, sons of a man living in the land of Canaan. Our youngest brother is back there with our father right now, and one of our brothers is no longer with us.” 14 But Joseph insisted, “As I said, you are spies! 15 This is how I will test your story. I swear by the life of Pharaoh that you will never leave Egypt unless your youngest brother comes here! 16 One of you must go and get your brother. I'll keep the rest of you here in prison. Then we'll find out whether or not your story is true. By the life of Pharaoh, if it turns out that you don't have a younger brother, then I'll know you are spies.” 17 So Joseph put them all in prison for three days. 18 On the third day Joseph said to them, “I am a God-fearing man. If you do as I say, you will live. 19 If you really are honest men, choose one of your brothers to remain in prison. The rest of you may go home with grain for your starving families. 20 But you must bring your youngest brother back to me. This will prove that you are telling the truth, and you will not die.” To this they agreed. Romans 12:17a (TLB) 17 Never pay back evil for evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honest clear through. Romans 12:19 (TLB) 19 Dear friends, never avenge yourselves. Leave that to God, for he has said that he will repay those who deserve it. Don't take the law into your own hands.[a] Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe)  

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/16100747/June-14-Sermon.mp3 Genesis 39:19-21 Joseph Put in Prison 19 Potiphar was furious when he heard his wife's story about how Joseph had treated her. 20 So he took Joseph and threw him into the prison where the king's prisoners were held, and there he remained. 21 But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love. And the Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden. Genesis 40:14-15 14 And please remember me and do me a favor when things go well for you. Mention me to Pharaoh, so he might let me out of this place. 15 For I was kidnapped from my homeland, the land of the Hebrews, and now I'm here in prison, but I did nothing to deserve it.” Genesis 40:23 23 Pharaoh's chief cup-bearer, however, forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought.   Genesis 41:1 Pharaoh's Dreams 41 Two full years later, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing on the bank of the Nile River. Genesis 41:9-16 9 Finally, the king's chief cup-bearer spoke up. “Today I have been reminded of my failure,” he told Pharaoh. 10 “Some time ago, you were angry with the chief baker and me, and you imprisoned us in the palace of the captain of the guard. 11 One night the chief baker and I each had a dream, and each dream had its own meaning. 12 There was a young Hebrew man with us in the prison who was a slave of the captain of the guard. We told him our dreams, and he told us what each of our dreams meant. 13 And everything happened just as he had predicted. I was restored to my position as cup-bearer, and the chief baker was executed and impaled on a pole.” 14 Pharaoh sent for Joseph at once, and he was quickly brought from the prison. After he shaved and changed his clothes, he went in and stood before Pharaoh. 15 Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I had a dream last night, and no one here can tell me what it means. But I have heard that when you hear about a dream you can interpret it.” 16 “It is beyond my power to do this,” Joseph replied. “But God can tell you what it means and set you at ease.” Psalm 37:7 7 Be still before the Lord    and wait patiently for him;do not fret when people succeed in their ways,    when they carry out their wicked schemes. Isaiah 40:31 31 But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.    They will soar high on wings like eagles.They will run and not grow weary.    They will walk and not faint. Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) This is one of my favourite worship songs. I just sang it last night. Again, I often do that. Just before I go to bed, I’ll listen to a few of these, and this was the one last night I just put on, and I was just taking some time with the Lord. I trust in God. Do we do that? Sometimes we forget that, right? When life gets a little tough, we kind of grab to all kinds of straws, and they don’t last that long, but the Lord is always there. He starts the song with blessed assurance. Remember how the words went in the old song? For Jesus is mine. Lord, thank you for the series on Joseph. Thank you for the lessons we learned. Help us, Lord, to take those and make them part of our lives, especially this morning. It’s a big one. Thank you for that. May we ask, as we always do, that we can see Jesus and only Jesus. So I’m sitting in the doctor’s office in the waiting room. Jay nearly choked on his coffee now. Let me go back. I’m sitting in the doctor’s office in the waiting room. The receptionist checked me in, and she said, take a seat and wait. The nurse will call you when the doctor is ready to see you. I’m not alone in this room. There’s other people with me, and we all know our task. It’s in the name of the room. Wait. We don’t tweet each other. We don’t take blood pressure. We don’t write prescriptions. Our job is to wait. Now, we don’t like that because we’re this kind of giddy-up generation, right? We weave through the traffic to get to the fastest lane just to stop at the traffic light at the same time as everyone else. We get really upset when someone brings 11 items into the 10-item express checkout, and we drum our fingers when we watch Netflix, and it takes a little while for that video to download. We don’t like waiting, not for the traffic, not for the doctor, not for God. Can we take a moment and just think about this for a moment? Where are we sitting? Not today in the church. Every day as we live in this world, where are we sitting? We’re sitting in God’s waiting room. See the young couple sitting there? They’ve been waiting for a long time, trying to get pregnant. See the gentleman there with a briefcase on his lap? He’s been sending out resume after resume, waiting, waiting to find a job. See the elderly lady, just widowed? She’s been waiting for one day without waking up crying. Here’s the thing. We live in a land between prayer offered and prayer answered, in the land of waiting, in God’s waiting room. Now, if there’s someone that knows every piece of furniture, who’s read every notice on that bulletin board in God’s waiting room, it was Joseph. He spent hours down in a cistern, waiting that someone might just take him out. Months walking about 750 kilometres to get to Egypt. Days, if not weeks, on that auction block. A decade in the household of Potiphar, the captain of the guard. Time moves slowly in a foreign land, and time stops in prison. And that’s where we pick up his story today. Can I just give you a little backstory before we read, and we’re going to start reading chapter 39 verse 19. So Joseph works for Potiphar, and things are wonderful. People love him, everyone loves him, and Potiphar’s wife wants to love him even more. She invites him into her bedroom, and he says, no thank you. She did not take that kindly. So she decided that she was going to get him back for that. So she goes to her husband, and she lies, and she tells him that Joseph tried to sexually assault her. And that’s where we pick up our story. Potiphar was so furious when he heard his wife’s story about Joseph, how Joseph had treated her. So he took Joseph, and he threw him into the prison where the king’s prisoners were held, and there he remained. Do I need to say this? But the Lord, this is about God even better. But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison, and he showed him his faithful love. But the Lord was with Joseph even there where time stood still. And then, and I’m going to use strange words which I will explain in a second. I’m using them specifically. It just so happened that the baker and the butler, not the candlestick maker, only the baker and the butler, they messed up, and Pharaoh got really angry at them, and he dumped them in jail with Joseph. They became friends. And it just so happened that they both had a dream. And it just so happened that God allowed Joseph to understand the dreams and tell them what the dreams meant. If I was the baker, I wish I never had that dream for him. It didn’t end that well. He lost his head. The butler or the cupbearer, as the translation calls him, the butler, he got really good news. You’re not going to stay in here for long, buddy. You go right back, and they’re going to put you back in your job, and you’re going to live happily ever after working for the king. But as Joseph tells him that, he asks him a favour. Chapter 40, verse 14. He said to him, please remember me. Do me a favour when things go well for you. Mention me to Pharaoh so he might let me out of this place, for I was kidnapped from my homeland, the land of the Hebrews, and now I’m here in prison. But I did nothing to deserve it. And then verse 23. Pharaoh’s cupbearer, butler, however, forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought. For two years, not a single word. Enough time for Joseph to forget about God, to kind of push his beliefs to one side and say, it’s all done. There’s nothing more. I’m just stuck in this prison. But he never did, because Joseph knows all about last week’s sermon. About the one who weaves. Sometimes the world weaves, but God is the amazing re-weaver. And he knew all about that. Never gave up. And then it happened. Pharaoh had this dream. Actually, two dreams. One about cows and one about grain. It upset him really, because he didn’t understand what this was all about. So he got all of his wise people and all of his counsellors together. And he said, explain this to me, because I’m really concerned about what this might mean. They had no clue. And then that moment, chapter 41, verse 9. Finally, the king’s cupbearer spoke up, the butler. Today, I have been reminded of my failure, he told Pharaoh. Some time ago, you were angry with the chief baker and me, and you imprisoned us in the palace of the captain of the guard. That is Potiphar. One night, the chief baker and I each had a dream, and each dream had its own meaning. And there was a young Hebrew man with us in the prison who was a slave of the captain of the guard. And we told him our dreams. And he told us what each of our dreams meant. And everything happened just as he had predicted. I was restored to my position as cupbearer, and the chief baker was executed and impaled on a pole. Sandy Barry, I just told you about that this week. Pharaoh sent for Joseph at once, and he was quickly brought from the prison. And after he shaved and changed his clothes, he went in and stood before Pharaoh. This would be the first time that Pharaoh and Joseph would come face to face, and they would look at each other. Wouldn’t be the last. Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, I had a dream last night, and no one here can tell me what it means. But I’ve heard that when you hear about a dream, you can interpret it. Now, listen carefully to Joseph’s answer. It is beyond my power to do this, Joseph replied. And do I have to say it? But God. But God can tell you what it means and said to you, I can’t do it, but God can do it. Joseph comes out of jail after all this time, going through all of the stuff, and he comes out there bragging about God. The jail time, the wait time did not diminish his faith, did not take away his faith, did quite the opposite. It strengthened his faith in this God who is weaving his life together, even if he’s sitting in the waiting room. Because Joseph understood his God. God who makes promises and keeps them. A God who is sovereign and nothing in this world can change what God is doing and is going to do and will do in your life and in my life, because that’s just who he is. And I didn’t write this in the sermon, but boy was that right. I trust in God. That’s what Joseph would have said, and that was maybe the last song he sang before he got out of jail. And you, you might not be in jail, but you might be sitting in that waiting room. Well, while you’re waiting, God is working. God never sits around and twiddling his thumbs. I wonder what’s going on in the universe. Doesn’t take vacation. Psalm 121, he never slumbers and he never sleeps. John 5, he never stops working. We have a song for that. Waymaker, he never stops. He never stops working. He’s the waymaker, miracle worker, light in the darkness. That is who you are. You never stop. You never stop working, even when I’m sitting in the waiting room. Think of Joseph. In a sense, chapter 40, his life came to a standstill. There he was, dumped, and that was the end. And now I’m coming back to those words that I used when I said, it just so happened. Nah, it didn’t just so happen. It was no coincidence. This was God working. God putting the pieces together. Those two guys who fell out of favour with Pharaoh, God knew that there was a plan with that. And he put them right there where Joseph would meet them. And God had them have these dreams. And God gave it to Joseph so Joseph could explain it. God was at work, even when Joseph was sitting in the waiting room. And when all the pieces were in place, Pharaoh had a dream, and no one understood. And at the right time, at the right time, the old cupbearer who forgot for more than two years said, there’s a Joseph. See, that’s God at the right time. Not my time. Not your time. We live in the land of waiting between a prayer offered and a prayer answered. We kind of, God help me now. Now! Stand in line. There’s someone with 12 in front of you. The land between a prayer offered and a prayer answered. It is the land of waiting. But God is working, and God is weaving. So it’s okay sometimes to wait. Giddy up, generation. And as you wait, it would behove you to just look up to the wall, because God has a beautiful plaque on the wall in his waiting room. Psalm 46 verse 10. Someone know where that is? There’s a coffee for that. No, don’t look it up. Be still and know that I, that’s right there in his waiting room. Be still and know that I, I can be glad, even in my waiting, because God is good. I can be silent, because God is, I can rest, because God is busy. I know that’s hard, because we want those answers right now. We don’t like to wait. I want to go straight into it. But in the waiting is where we learn more and more about this master weaver in our lives. There’s this beautiful word, Psalm 31, and Alexander knows that’s one of those that’s going to be read at my funeral. I trust in you. I say you are my God. Just before that, he says, God, I’m scared. There’s lots of stuff going on, and I’m not sure about all these things, but I trust in you. I say you are my God, and then those words, my times are in your hands. Can we say that in our own lives? I trust in you. Between a prayer offered and a prayer answered, my times are in your hands. And then do what Paul says, right? Through prayer and petition and with thanksgiving, you give it to God. And let me end. It would be good for us to remember, and Grace, you have this on there, to remember Isaiah chapter 40, verse 31. Those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. Can I just stop that for a second? The word trust is sometimes translated with hope, and the King James got it right for once, translated it correctly. Again, a Hebrew word, Amirah, kavah. Kavah means to wait. Those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. Those who wait on the Lord will soar high on wings like eagles. Those who wait on the Lord will run and not grow weary. Those who wait on the Lord will walk and they will not faint. You’ll get through that waiting room period. Ask Joseph. He’ll tell you. One more thing. As you sit there, you might notice that the door opens and you’ll see the doctor come out and come sit right next to you. And he’ll say, I’m just going to sit here while we wait. Not all doctors will do that, but yours will, because he’s the great physician. So, welcome to the waiting room. Amen. Take a few moments of quiet prayer. Think of me, O Lord. Think of me in your greatness. Be the rock where I can come and hide. Be that faithful one that I can come and sit and I can just pour my heart out, for I trust in you, Lord. I say, you are my God. And as I wait, my times are in your hand. In Jesus’ name. Amen. We’re going to sing. Praise team. Thank you. When we do the postlude, it seems that we’ve been a little mischievous and we’ve done some stuff that God doesn’t like. So, the last song, if you see on your bulletin, says, Lord, reign me in. So, God must be thinking about us to reign us in for something. It was a little mistype, but we’ll sing Lord, reign me in. That’s our postlude.

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/10121328/June-7-Sermon.mp3 Genesis 37:5-11 (NLT) 5 One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever. 6 “Listen to this dream,” he said. 7 “We were out in the field, tying up bundles of grain. Suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine!” 8 His brothers responded, “So you think you will be our king, do you? Do you actually think you will reign over us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them. 9 Soon Joseph had another dream, and again he told his brothers about it. “Listen, I have had another dream,” he said. “The sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed low before me!” 10 This time he told the dream to his father as well as to his brothers, but his father scolded him. “What kind of dream is that?” he asked. “Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow to the ground before you?” 11 But while his brothers were jealous of Joseph, his father wondered what the dreams meant. Genesis 37:25-28 25 Then, just as they were sitting down to eat, they looked up and saw a caravan of camels in the distance coming toward them. It was a group of Ishmaelite traders taking a load of gum, balm, and aromatic resin from Gilead down to Egypt. 26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain by killing our brother? We'd have to cover up the crime.[a] 27 Instead of hurting him, let's sell him to those Ishmaelite traders. After all, he is our brother—our own flesh and blood!” And his brothers agreed. 28 So when the Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders, came by, Joseph's brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to them for twenty pieces[b] of silver. And the traders took him to Egypt.   Romans 11:29 (MSG) A Complete Israel 25-29 I want to lay all this out on the table as clearly as I can, friends. This is complicated. It would be easy to misinterpret what's going on and arrogantly assume that you're royalty and they're just rabble, out on their ears for good. But that's not it at all. This hardness on the part of insider Israel toward God is temporary. Its effect is to open things up to all the outsiders so that we end up with a full house. Before it's all over, there will be a complete Israel. As it is written, A champion will stride down from the mountain of Zion;    he'll clean house in Jacob.And this is my commitment to my people:    removal of their sins. From your point of view as you hear and embrace the good news of the Message, it looks like the Jews are God's enemies. But looked at from the long-range perspective of God's overall purpose, they remain God's oldest friends. God's gifts and God's call are under full warranty—never canceled, never rescinded.   Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Thank you, Praise Team. What a wonderful morning of worship again. I missed you on the piano though. 6:10, not 6:07, 6:10. We really want you to do that. Alexander had a little fun with you this morning, but please go do that. 6:10 in the morning or 6:10 in the evening or afternoon, whatever you want to call it. Take a few moments, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and pray. Pray for our search team in the work that they are doing, finding the next minister for this church. Pray for the person that God is preparing for this position. But also pray for another team because we’ve been struggling for a long time. We’re looking for someone for our youth, and we just do not have folks that are applying, and it’s not just us. It’s all over that we’re struggling with that. Pray for us too. Pray for folks that feel that call to do that. With God’s grace, I think there might be two people. That’ll be good news for those on the team that we might see apply and that we might be able to sit down and talk to. So 6.10 until we find people, take time. Five minutes is all we’re asking. Be quiet, and that’s all you pray for, nothing else. That’s what you pray for. Lord, as we continue our journey with Joseph, not an easy journey, Lord, because it starts in a home, goes to a pit, ends in slavery, but also in the end, it ends in war, more than that. But as we walk this path, help us, Lord, to see you as Joseph did, to see your hand in every moment, even there in the deepest pit, as we said last week. And every day as we walk, and in these moments, may we see Jesus, and only Jesus. I think you got it right, Alexander. Now I moved it, and now it’s all oblong. It started, the trouble started when Joseph’s mouth started. He walked into breakfast that morning, and he was blabbing about this dream that he had. Read with me. I’m going to do the verses little by little. It’s a little bit of fun. One night, Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever. Remember I told you verse five last week? Listen to this dream, he said. We were out in the field, tying up bundles of grain, and suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine. I do not know what Joseph was thinking. Was he really thinking that his brothers were going to just slap him on the back and say, baby brother, that’s amazing. We can’t wait to bow down before you. Well, they didn’t. They kicked dirt in his face, and they told him to take a hike. Verse nine, verse eight. His brothers responded, so you think you will be our king, do you? Do you actually think you’ll reign over us? And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them. Now you’d think he would take a hint, but he didn’t. So he just comes right back, and this time with a dream even more elaborate than the first one, verse nine. Soon Joseph had another dream, and again he told his brothers about it. Listen, I’ve had another dream, he said. The sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowed low before me. This time he told the dream to his father as well as to his brothers, but his father scolded him. What kind of dream is that? He asked, will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow to the ground before you? But while his brothers were jealous of Joseph, his father wondered what the dream was. He should have kept those dreams to himself, and I think that’s what he was thinking if you think back to last week’s sermon when he was sitting there right at the bottom of that dark pit, heard the brothers up there laughing and having fun. And then all of a sudden, it’s not just their voices, there are other voices too. So let’s go to verse 25. Then just as they were sitting down to eat, the brothers, they looked up and saw a caravan of camels in the distance coming toward them. It was a group of Ishmaelite traders taking a load of gum, balm, and aromatic resin from Gilead down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, what will we gain by killing our brother? We’d have to cover up the crime. Instead of hurting him, let’s sell him to those Ishmaelite traders after all. He’s our brother, our own flesh and blood. And his brothers agreed. So when the Ishmaelites who were Midianite traders came by, Joseph’s brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to them for 20 pieces of silver. And the traders took him to Egypt. Just like that. Brothers pulled him out, took the money, grabbed the garment, left, and Joseph had no choice. He was on his way to Egypt to be a slave. Can I just stop the story there for a second? Because I want to set the scene for you for what this sermon is all about. Not too long ago, Joseph had everything going his way. He was hanging out at home. Brothers had to work. He was the loved son and everything was going to him. He had his own tailor who made his own special garment for him. He had these wonderful lofty dreams. But like the old saying goes, what goes up must come down. And Joseph’s life came down with a crash. Down, down, down. Put down by the brothers, thrown down into a cistern, sold down the river of slavery, led down the road to Egypt. Stripped of everything. His name, his status, his position, everything he had, everything he hoped to have, it all went down the drain. Down to Egypt. And this is what the sermon is all about. Because here’s the thing. Life sometimes can do that. It can get us down. We even have sayings for that. I’m down to my last dollar. Just yesterday, this was not written in the sermon, but it gave me in a moment. As I was driving to Zehrs to pick up something, I saw this young lady come to the place where she always stands at the traffic light. And she had this cardboard and she was writing her cardboard again. And as I came back from Zehrs, she was ready and she stood there and she had a down on there. Down on my luck. Because that’s where she is. She’s down. Down to my last penny. Down on my back. Down and out. All of a sudden life takes us down. Boy, that’s a downer this morning. That’s not where I’m going. It takes us down. Now let’s go back to Joseph. Hold on to that. Joseph. When he arrives in Egypt, he has nothing. It’s all taken away. His family, his home, his country. Everything. He has lost everything. But the one thing he didn’t lose was his belief in God’s plan for his life. Joseph never stopped believing that. Never mind how down he went. Down into the pit. Down with the Ishmaelites. Down to Egypt. Down into the dungeon of the jail there. He never stopped believing in the fact that this was God’s plan for his life and nothing would change that. And he was going to hold on to that plan because he knew. Remember last week, Genesis 50 verse 20. You weaved evil. But God is the amazing weaver and God re-weaved, re-wove those plans. And they became plans not just good for me but good for everyone else. Joseph never stopped believing God’s plan and that God had a destiny for him. And I think sometimes, forgive me when I say this, that we forget that. When we hit those Egypt moments, I think sometimes we forget God has a plan. In my, where are we now, 44 years as a minister, I’ve heard many Joseph stories. I told you one last week. I’ve seen many folks going down to Egypt and I’ve always asked them this one question. So with all of this, what is the one thing that you still have that you cannot lose? What is the one thing you still have that you can’t lose? It can’t be taken away. Difficulties can strip us from so many things. Struggles can overwhelm us. But the one thing that no one and nothing can take away from me is God’s destiny for me. But let me explain that word destiny because we sometimes think of fate. Oh, it’s my fate. It’s my destiny. It’s just gonna, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. God’s destiny for you is a little different. Can I use the Hebrew word because the Hebrew word is way more beautiful. Amira, I don’t know if it’s the same in Arabic. Ye’ut in Hebrew. Ye’ut. It’s a yot and a ayin and a vav and a dalet in Hebrew. Amira would understand that. Ye’ut means purpose. It also means life’s plan. It also means that which God made me to be and that which God wants me to do. One thing nothing can take away from me is God’s destiny for me. Think of Joseph. And here’s the thing that makes it true for each one of us. The reason we can say that to one another is because of this fact of who you are. Kerry, who are you? You’re not just Kerry. You are Kerry, the child of God. That’s what makes you, you. The fact that we are children of God. Because why is that important? When God says I’m his child, all God does is give the best that God has to me in my life. Also when I’m down in the pit. Also when I’m with Ishmaelite traitors. Also when I land in Egypt and I don’t know where I’m going to be. Also when I’m trying to do good and I land in jail. God still says you’re my child. I have a purpose. I have a plan and I will make that plan work for your life because you’re my child. And we’re going to sing that. I specifically asked Kerry. I sent her a text this week and said can we add another song which we didn’t. We’re going to sing that in a little while where we say I’m no longer a slave to fear or a slave to sin. I am a child of God. The words go from my mother’s womb you have chosen me. Love has called my name. Think of that for a second. That’s who you are. Jeremiah wrote that. Even before I was born you knew me. The Psalm 139 says in my mother’s womb when I was being knit together you already knew who I am. From my mother’s womb you’ve called and you’ve woven me. You’ve called me. Your love has called my name. And then it goes one step further. The song says that I’ve been born again into your family. It’s God’s family we’re there to take care of each other in those down moments. We’re there to lift each other up. We’re there to laugh with each other Paul the young when we can sit on the stool of repentance and just love one another and just smile. I’ve been born again into your family. And then those beautiful words your love your blood flows through my veins. That’s who you are. A child of God. God has a purpose and a plan and a destiny for you even sometimes if it feels it’s going down. Don’t believe the tombstone that says you’re just a dash between two dates. You’re far more than that. Don’t fall into into small thinking. This world can take everything away from you. The one thing they cannot take away is the love of the one who has your destiny in his hand. And sometimes on the way to Egypt we forget that. And then we redefine ourselves according to our catastrophes the things that happen in our lives. And I look at myself well I’m the bankrupt businessman. I’m the recovering addict. I’m the divorcee. I’m the one with the scars. No. No that’s not who you are. That’s not what God does in your life. Despite those little setbacks God is the God of the big comeback. Think of Joseph. He was a nothing in a bit. And look what he was. Because God had a plan not just for Joseph and I’m getting ahead of myself but we’ll get there. Not just for Joseph but for his brothers and for his father and for his family. They would all come back to Egypt and they would settle and God would take care of him. Joseph would understand the dreams of Pharaoh and they could help the world who would come and would come by from them when there was no food. That was God’s plan. Although it looked like it was going down, down, down. God knew about that. Don’t put yourself down. Don’t allow the world to play the down game with you. You are God’s child and God is true to his promises. Listen to this beautiful promise from Romans chapter 11. God’s gifts and God’s call are under full warranty. They never cancelled and they are never rescinded. Believe that. That’s for your life. You’re God’s child. God never goes back on his promises. You’re more than anything that this world could ever throw at you. Remember the question and you’ll put that slide on there. I like that big orange slide. The question I always ask, so what do you still have that you cannot? God’s plan for your life never changes because God never changes. Survival in Egypt begins with a yes to God and to God’s plan. And yes, you have something that you cannot lose. Amen. Take a few moments of silent prayer. Thank you. Father, you are good. Even when we’re in the pit and when we’re in the hands of the Ishmaelites and we have no idea, because you know those amazing plans that you have made. It’s tough sometimes. We go through real difficult times and we kind of wonder. But then we see you and we know. Thank you, Lord. Thank you that you have us, our plans, our destiny in your hands. Not fate. We don’t care about that. We care about you. Thank you, Lord. We love you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/03152102/May-31-Sermon.mp3 Genesis 37:12-13 12 Soon after this, Joseph's brothers went to pasture their father's flocks at Shechem. 13 When they had been gone for some time, Jacob said to Joseph, “Your brothers are pasturing the sheep at Shechem. Get ready, and I will send you to them.” “I'm ready to go,” Joseph replied. Genesis 37:18-24 Joseph Sold into Slavery 18 When Joseph's brothers saw him coming, they recognized him in the distance. As he approached, they made plans to kill him. 19 “Here comes the dreamer!” they said. 20 “Come on, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns. We can tell our father, ‘A wild animal has eaten him.' Then we'll see what becomes of his dreams!” 21 But when Reuben heard of their scheme, he came to Joseph's rescue. “Let's not kill him,” he said. 22 “Why should we shed any blood? Let's just throw him into this empty cistern here in the wilderness. Then he'll die without our laying a hand on him.” Reuben was secretly planning to rescue Joseph and return him to his father. 23 So when Joseph arrived, his brothers ripped off the beautiful robe he was wearing. 24 Then they grabbed him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it.  Genesis 50:20 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.   Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) I think this simple little song is one of my all-time favourites. Laura, you outdid yourself this morning. I don’t know what happened to you, but it happened to me. As you were playing, I was just overwhelmed. I still am. My emotions were just all over the place, and I just see that as the spirit that was doing that. So, thank you for your gift that became God’s gift to us. Thank you. Sorry, old man’s emotions get to him a little bit. We’re starting a new series. By the way, it’s written by Darlene Czech. She didn’t write too many, and the last song we’re singing was also written by Darlene, so it’s a Darlene morning, this morning. Starting a new series today called At the Right Time. Sorry about Joseph, but we’ll get to Joseph in a moment. Father, help me to breathe in this moment. Thank you that you breathe your breath into each one of us, that living breath of your Holy Spirit. May your breath just cover this place today as you blow the wind of your Holy Spirit. And as always, we pray, Lord Jesus, that we may see you and only you. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. This painting that I have here this morning is an original oil painting. I got this as a gift in my first congregation in 1988, so that made me 30 years old. When I received this from the artist that made this, a young woman by the name, sorry, my bladder is leaking. I got this from a young woman called Tia Barnard in 1988 because of something that we shared in 1987. So, I’m saying the age because I want you to understand a little bit of the impact, because I still carry the impact of that to this day. I was 29 years old. It was about 9, 9.30 in the evening. Elsie and I were sitting. We still had a manse in those days. We were sitting in the manse. The kids, two of the three were born. They were in bed, and we were having a cup of tea. And the phone rang in my office. Now, remember those days we did not have cell phones. We still had phones that had tails on them. Phone rang in the office. I went to the office. I picked up the phone, and the voice on the other side, it was just this deadly, shocked, couldn’t really speak voice, was Tia. She just said, Aubrey, you need to come to my house immediately. Something terrible has happened. You need to come to my house. Tia’s kids were about the same age as ours. Her little girl was five. Her little boy was three. I said to Elsie, something’s really wrong at Tia’s house. I need to get there. So, I jump in the car, and I drive as fast as I can, and I get there. She’s waiting at the door, and this woman is shaking. Got two little kids clinging to her legs. I come in there. I said, Tia, what’s going on? She said, just come in, and we walk into the living room, and I’m stunned, because there on the floor lies her husband, dead with a gunshot wound in his head. He committed suicide in front of her and those two little kids. That leaves a mark in your life forever. The cops came, sorry, the police came a few minutes later. The ambulance folks came a few minutes later, and it was chaos. So, they wanted to talk to Tia. So, I took the two little ones. Good thing we knew each other. So, I took the two little ones, and we went to their bedroom, and I tried to settle them down, and when all the stuff was done, I helped Tia put the little ones to bed, and we just sat there, and I cried with her, and I was stunned with her, because you do not have too many words in moments like those. It was early morning when I left. I did call Elsie from her house just to say, I’m okay, don’t worry, I’m going to be there late. Go to bed. I left in the early hours of the morning to go back home. As we stood at the door, Tia just held on to me. She didn’t want to let go, and I said to her, Tia, I know you don’t want to hear this right now, and I know it’s going to sound really crazy, but you will get through this. It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be really hard and really tough. It’s not going to be quick. It’s going to take an awful long time. There’s going to be a lot of frustration, a lot of questions, a lot of hurt, but don’t despair. You will get through this. A little audacious of me, right? Where do I get the right to speak such a promise into such tragedy? Well, actually, I got it in a pit, a really deep, dark pit, and the young boy who was in the bottom of that pit could not get out of that pit even if he wanted to, and if he tried, his brothers would kick him right down back into the pit. But don’t let me tell you the story. Let’s read the story. Genesis chapter 37, verse 12. Soon after this, Joseph’s brothers went to pasture their father’s flocks at Shechem. When they’d been gone for some time, Jacob said to Joseph, brothers are pasturing the sheep at Shechem. Get ready, and I will send you to them. I’m ready to go, Joseph replied. When Joseph’s brothers saw him coming, they recognised him in the distance. As he approached, they made plans to kill him. Here comes the dreamer, they said. Come on, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns. We can tell our father a wild animal has eaten him, and then we’ll see what becomes of his dreams. But when Reuben heard of their scheme, he came to Joseph’s rescue. Let’s not kill him, he said. Why should we shed any blood? Let’s just throw him into this empty cistern here in the wilderness, and then you’ll die without our laying a hand on him. Reuben was secretly planning to rescue Joseph and return him to his father. Now note this verse. So when Joseph arrived, his brothers ripped off the beautiful robe he was wearing. Then they grabbed him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty. There was no water in it. He didn’t land with a splash. Then, just as they were sitting down to eat, they looked up and saw a caravan of camels in the distance coming toward them. It was a group of Ishmaelite traders taking a load of gum, balm, and aromatic resin from Gilead down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, what will we gain by killing our brother? We’d have to cover up the crime. Instead of hurting him, let’s sell him to those Ishmaelite traders. After all, he’s our brother, our own flesh and blood. His brothers agreed. So when the Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders, came by, Joseph’s brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to them for 20 pieces of silver. And the traders took him to Egypt. Can you imagine being Joseph? He’s crying out for help and his brothers care more about their lunch than they do about their little brother or helping him. They despised the boy. Why? A little family background in this. Jacob, Joseph’s father and the brother’s father, treated Joseph differently from all of the other kids. Why? Well, there’s a reason. Remember, Jacob had two wives, Leah and Rachel, but only one love. Rachel. And when Rachel died, giving birth to her second son, Ben-Oni, or as we know him, Benjamin, Jacob just poured out all of his love on his son, Joseph. The other boys would work outside. Joseph played inside. They got their clothes from Value Village. Joseph had a coat that was handmade, hand-stitched with long sleeves, specifically for him. No, it wasn’t a coat of multi-colours. Never says that ever in the Bible. I don’t know where they got that. The Hebrew is actually a kind of difficult word. It actually, that word is the same word that is used for the robe that a young prince would wear, but never said anything about amazing technicolour twinkle. I was dreamed out by a man called Andrew. Sorry about that. The brothers would work. Joseph would play. The brothers would be out in the field, we read. Joseph would hang out at home. Jacob treated his 11th-born son like he was the firstborn. So to say that his brothers didn’t like him was a little bit of a understatement. If I take you back in this chapter to verse 4, 5, and 8, verse 4 says, they hated him. Verse 5 says, they hated him even more. Verse 8 says, they hated him more and more. So do you get it? They hated him. They really hated him. So when Joseph shows up where they’re working in the field, they go ballistic on this boy. They ripped the robe off him. They grabbed him and they threw him in the cistern. Angry words. Rip, grab, throw. And Joseph, Joseph never saw it coming. He had no idea this was going to happen. Neither did Tia. Neither do we. Before you know it, the pit is there. Joseph’s pit was a cistern. Tia’s pit was a gunshot in her living room. Yours? Mine? I don’t know. But you do. You know those pits. Loss of someone. Relationship that breaks up. A really bad diagnosis. No diagnosis. Losses? Struggles? I don’t know. But what I do know about the pit is that it’s really deep and it’s really dark. And when you’re in that pit, your focus is to get out of the hurt, get out of the pit as fast as you can. But that’s easier said than done, right? Think about Joseph. Before Joseph’s life would get any better, it got really worse. Went from abandonment to enslavement, to being entrapped, to imprisonment. That pit just got deeper and deeper. And despite that, this is where I want you to get. Despite that, Joseph’s anger never became hatred. Joseph’s heart never became hard. But through all of this adversity, Joseph didn’t just survive. Joseph thrived. Took 20 years. 20 years later, Joseph was the second most powerful man of his generation. So how did Joseph flourish through the tragedy? Can I take you back to our story? And I’m doing a little bit of the story that I will finish in the last sermon in the series. So we’re doing four and the last one that’s coming just before the summer comes. I’ll do the rest of this. But I need to go to that to explain how he could flourish despite all of this difficulty that he was going through. So 20 years later, the tables are turned. Joseph is the powerful one. The brothers come to Egypt, and they’re the weak ones. They have nothing. Joseph reveals himself to them, and they stand, look at Joseph, and they’re thinking, okay, he’s gonna pay us back. We put him in the pit, he’s gonna put us in the pit, and he’s gonna leave us there, and we will die in prison forever. But he doesn’t, does he? Why? Why doesn’t he pay them back? Why doesn’t he put them in that pit? The answer is in Scripture. Last chapter of Joseph’s story, last chapter of the book of Genesis, chapter 50, verse 20, says this, speaks to his brothers, and he says, you intended to harm me. And here comes the but, but this is about God, which is even bigger. You intended to harm me, but God, God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many. See, here’s the thing. In God’s hands, the intended evil became eventual good. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not saying it’s gonna happen right now. I’m not saying there’s not frustration, but I’m saying you’ll get through this, says the story of Joseph. That’s why I could say that to Tia. You’ll get through this. Joseph never gave up. Can you remember the story, how it ended? That torn robe became a royal robe. That pit became a palace. That broken family grew old in Egypt together. Why? Because of verse 20. You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good. But I want to give you a little Hebrew lesson for today. And this is a good word to remember, but you’re going to struggle to say it because it starts with a ch. The Hebrew word that we translate for intended or meant to is the word chabash, a chashav. Chashav is an old primitive root and literally means to weave. So take that away. Put that text back, Ted. Now let’s take that word intended and let’s use the word weave. You weaved wicked and bad things against me to harm me, but God took that and God rewove that into something good. See, God is the master weaver. Satan will weave his Satan webs around our lives. Life will weave their webs sometimes, and life will weave sometimes really painful moments like 1987. But the master weaver takes those old weaves that were so wrong and he weaves them all back and they will be beautiful. Don’t give up. Don’t give up. If God could redeem Joseph’s life, don’t you think God will redeem yours? In the moment, it can sometimes feel hard and difficult and feel like it’s never going to end. But that weaver has never changed. And God is good even when life isn’t. Will you hold on to that, please? In the good, in the bad, in the ugly. You’ll get through it. As you see, that’s one of God’s favourite words, through. God gets us through stuff. Through the Reed Sea, dry to leave the enemies behind. Through the wilderness with manna and quail and water from the rock. Through the Jordan River into the land of milk and honey. Through the valley of the shadow of death to a table and green pastures and quiet waters. He is the God of getting us through. Yeah. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not going to be painful because the weaving and the re-weaving might sometimes be hard and difficult. It’s not always quick. 20 years from the age of 17 to the age of 37 for Joseph. Sometimes we see a perfect mess where God sees a perfect opportunity. We call it Egypt. God calls it protective custody. We see Satan and Satan’s tricks and God sees Satan being tripped up in his own tricks. Joseph will be the first one to tell each one of us that what we’re talking about this morning is not easy. But Joseph will remind us that when you’re in the pit, you have only one place to look at. You can only look up. And when you look up, you look until someone comes down to give you a hand. God did for Joseph. And at the right time, in the right way, he will for you. Amen. Take a few moments of silent prayer. Thank you, Lord, that we may look up even from the pit. Actually, especially from the pit. And that we may see you and know that you come down and you lift us up. Thank you for walking with us. Thank you that at the right time, in the right way, you, Lord, will get us through whatever we need to get through. We’re in a hurry, Lord, always, because everything is fast. We have to have the internet and it must be faster, and the cars must be faster, and the food must be faster. Thank you that you have your time and you’re always on time at the right time. Help us to walk with you through the Red Sea, through the desert, through the dark valleys, knowing there is a table and a feast, and we are the guest of honour. Thank you for what you do for us. Thank you for who you are in our lives. So, Lord, can we pray together? And please pray with me. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/27003503/May-24-Sermon.mp3 Ezekiel 37:1-14 The Valley of Dry Bones 37 The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath[a] enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.'” 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.'” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. 11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.'”   Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Father, you are good. I need help. They need help. Thank you that we may stand before you in the name of Jesus. May we see Jesus and only Jesus. Amen. So last week I made a little mistake. I said we’re starting a new series today. I actually meant after Pentecost. Today is Pentecost and then next week we’ll start a new series. It’s going to be fun. The series is called At the Right Time and we’re going to talk a little bit about the life of a man called Joseph and see what God says to our lives about that. But today is the day of Pentecost where we celebrate the Holy Spirit and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Now I don’t know if you have ever noticed as you read scripture that it does not only have God’s answers to many of our life questions that we have. Many of the things that we go through in life that God gives us answers to those where we ask for that. But it also has God’s questions. Questions that God asks us about our lives, about who we are, about how we live, about how life around us looks like. Let me give you a few examples because these questions are meant for us to stop, take stock, look at our own lives. Ask, what is God asking of me? Way back when in the garden when Adam and Eve messed up and God came looking for them, they went and they hid. And what was God’s question? Where are you? Having them think for a moment, why are we hiding? What did we do? And God asks, where are you? And often he asks us, where are you? When Moses was reluctant when God called him to go and free his people from Egypt and Moses had all of these excuses one after the other, God asked him a question. What was the question? What do you have in your hand? There was only a staff, but that staff became a snake. That staff became that which changed the Nile into blood. That staff became that which parted the sea. That staff became that which hit the rock and the water came from the rock. And often God asks us, what do you have in your hand? There was this guy called Jacob, the heel grabber, the deceiver. When he came back to the land and there at the Jabbok, he wrestled with God and God asked him a question. Can you remember what the question was? What is your name? And he had to say the name out loud, Jacob, deceiver, the one who deceived my father, my brother, my father-in-law, who deceived them all. I am Jacob and now you will be Isaac. No, Israel. You will be Israel, the one that I have called. And then there was this man called Peter. Peter, the old loud mouth. Peter said, Lord, they’ll all deceive you and they’ll all turn their backs on you and all. I’ll never do that. Peter stands there at the fire and they said, ah, you were one of them. And he said, I don’t know who you’re talking about. I don’t know this man. And then Jesus meets up with him, John 21, at the sea of Galilee and Jesus asks him a question. Can you remember the question? Do you love me? Often God will ask. One more and then we’ll go to our question of the day. There was this man, Paul. He was on his way to Damascus on this road and the Lord stopped him and he asked him a question. Why are you persecuting me? The questions God asks us. They’re meant to stop me in my tracks and let me look at myself and say, why are you asking me the question, Lord? What do you mean by asking me the question? It makes me embark on that journey to look at my relationship with God and ask, when am I with you, Lord? It takes me on another journey where it asks me to look at this relationship with these loved ones that God puts all around me. How are you doing with them? What is your relationship? The questions God asks us. So on this Pentecost Sunday, there is a question for us and what better place to go than the book of Ezekiel chapter 37. I’m going to read verses 1 to 14. The hand of the Lord was on me and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, and here is the question for today. Son of man, can these bones live? And I said, sovereign Lord, you alone know. And then he said to me, prophesy to these bones and say to them, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones. I will make breath enter you and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you and you will come to life. And then you will know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together bone to bone. And I looked and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them. But, there’s the but, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to it, this is what the sovereign Lord says, come breath from the four winds and breathe into these slain that they may live. Can I just stop there for one second? The one thing that we miss when we read English and not Hebrew is that sometimes there are words that are used that have more meaning. The word spirit, the word breath, and the word wind in Hebrew are all exactly the same word. It’s difficult for Canadian tongue to say because there’s a rrr in there and there’s a rrr in there. Ruach, the spirit, the breath, the wind of the Lord. So look how the Lord uses those. The spirit brings him, then he prays for the breath to the wind and the wind brings the breath. Verse 10, so I prophesied as he commanded me and breath entered them and they came to life, stood up on their feet, a vast army. And then he said to me, son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say our bones are dried up and our hope is gone and we’re cut off. Therefore, prophesy and say to them, this is what the sovereign Lord says. My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them. I will bring you back to the land of Israel and then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from them. And I will put my spirit, my wind, my breath in you and you will live. And I will settle you in your own land and then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and I have done it, declares the Lord. So God takes Ezekiel, and this is in a time when God’s people are in Babylonian exile, when they’ve lost everything. God takes Ezekiel and he puts him in this dry valley through the spirit, looks at the valley and there’s the skeleton bones of people lying there, dead, dried out, and it represents how God’s people feel about themselves. Dry, hopeless, dead, just there’s nothing left. They’re sitting in this situation and they’re going nowhere. And in this moment, God asks the question, can these bones live? What a profoundly poignant question, not just for people who are in exile and have lost everything, but a question for today and for each one of us. Can these bones live? Because so many of us struggle with the dry bones syndrome in this world. People struggling with their lives, people struggling with things around them. This world’s struggling with itself right now. It is quite dry and dead and desolate despite the fact that we have AI and all kinds of other jazz going on. So many people struggle with a dry bone syndrome, but also in our faith walk, many folks struggle with dry bones. They go through the motions. We read, we pray, we sing, but it’s dry and it’s empty and there’s nothing. And the question is, can these bones live? Let me try three answers. Two of those, I think, will lead us down a path that’s a cul-de-sac. And then one of those, I think, is one that will lead us on a path of life. And these are not answers that I thought out. These are the answers that we see. Answer number one. Can these bones live? Lord, step back. Let me do this. I’ll show you how it’s done. I’ll show you how we get these bones going again. Answer number one. And then we do it. And it’s the I thing. I’m going to study more. I’ll learn about the word more. I’ll pray more. I’ll go for more studies. I’ll get the Bible and I’ll read it from front to back and from back to front. Watch me, Lord. And then these bones will live. Here’s the problem. It’s the Pharisee problem when we do that. Because those Pharisees, they knew the first five books, the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, knew them off by heart. They could recite them word by Hebrew word. They knew the Ten Commandments. They lived by them. They actually made 613 laws from those first five books. Do’s and don’ts. 365 of those were don’ts. One for each day of the year. They had it all. Stand back, Lord. We can do it. And they could tick them off. I did that one. I did that one. I did that one. I’m okay. The bones are alive. Remember what Jesus said to them? Matthew 23, 27. He said, Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees. On the outside, you look like beautiful whitewashed graves. But on the inside, you’re filled with dead bones. The dry bone syndrome. We cannot solve that by saying, step back. I’ll do it. I’m gonna do more. It’s not about more. Oh, I’ll do new resolutions. I’ll go pray earlier in the morning. I’ll get up four o’clock. Can I tell you something? I never pray four o’clock in the morning because even God does not want to deal with me four o’clock in the morning. Way too grumpy. And then we do that. And then the poor family gets up. And then I’m grumpy with them. And the rest of the day is grumpy. And instead of getting closer to the Lord, I’m actually getting further away. And the bones are just getting drier and drier and drier. Sometimes there’s a second answer. Can these bones live? I don’t think so. The answer. I don’t think so. That’s the answer of despair, of disappointment, of discouragement, of a life that’s kind of going nowhere. And I’m thinking when I look at what God’s expectations are, I don’t think I have it. I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I’ll ever live up to that. I don’t think so. The problem with the first two is what you know me by now. I’ve said it a million times. It’s the I trouble. I trouble. Where we think I can do it. Leave it to me. I’m sorry to say it, my friends, but none of us can make those dry bones live again. Not on our own. We can’t. Maybe the third answer is the one that we need to think about for a second. Ezekiel, can these bones live? What was his answer? Sovereign Lord, you alone know. The question about life for dry bones is a question that only the living God can answer. Because it is only the living God that can give his living spirit, wind, breath, and blow that into our lives. It is only when God pours out that amazing gift of his Holy Spirit that those dry bones become life in all of its fullness and all of its abundance again. Because hear me, the Holy Spirit of God is not a ghost. The Holy Spirit of God is not some kind of it or power. The Holy Spirit of God is God in the present. It is God in his presence in my life and in your life that breathes the breath in us. Think about it. Genesis 1, when this world was formless and dark and it was nothing, who was the one that changed that? And the breath of God came over this formless thing and the breath of God breathed and it changed into the most beautiful creature. God made two little clay people and God breathed and the breath of God went into them and they became the most beautiful living images of the living. Oh the breath of God. When those disciples were so afraid after Jesus died on the cross, they locked themselves up in that upper room and they sat there like chickens on a perch on a day when there’s thunder and lightning and they’re so scared sitting in there. All of a sudden the Lord Jesus stands there and what does he do? He breathes on them and he says, receive the Spirit, the promise that was made. You will be my witnesses when the Spirit of God comes upon you. Just in that moment happens and after that breath, that man called Peter who denied and who was so scared, he would stand out there and he would preach and thousands would hear the word of the Lord. That same man, Paul, when the breath of God breathed on him, became a man who would go to the ends of the earth to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ despite the fact that his life was dry. He lived in prison for most of his life. How many times did he receive those 40 lashes on his back? How many times did he go without food and yet Paul always rejoiced in the Lord. Always, he said, rejoice. Why? Because that is what happens when the breath of God comes upon you and God breathes that breath. Oh Spirit of God, breathe on this church, Lord. Breathe on each one of us, Lord. Breathe that breath. Breathe it in and live the way that you would want us to live. How do we do that? How do we allow that? Maybe it starts by acknowledging that I need the breath of God. Anyone here need the breath of God? I’ll put both my hands up. There’s a beautiful story in the Jewish Talmud that tells about a young man who comes to the city gates because the wise men would always sit there. The elders of the community sit there and the young people would come ask them questions. This young man comes to this old man and he says to him, how can I have more of God in my life? The old man says, come with me and he takes him down to the river. When they get to the river, he asked the young man to kneel. As the young man kneeled, the old man comes from the back and he pushes his head into the water and he keeps his head down under the water. He holds him and he holds him until this young man starts kicking. Then he takes him out and as he takes his breath, the old man says to him, the day you need God as much as you needed this breath is when the breath of God will come into you. Maybe we need to learn how to breathe and acknowledge the breath of God. Lord, I need you is a song that we sing. Lord, I need you every hour. I need you by one defence, my righteousness. Oh, how I need you. Maybe we need to accept the promise of God. Verse 5, verse 6, verse 10, verse 14. This is what the sovereign Lord says, I will make breath enter you and you will come to life. Verse 6, I will put breath in you and you will come to life. Verse 10, so I prophesied as he commanded me and breath entered them and they came to life. Verse 14, but I want to start a little earlier with verse 12 and listen to the eyes, God’s eyes. My people, says the Lord, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them. I will bring you back to the land. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord. When I open your graves and bring you up from them, I will put my spirit in you and you will live. And I will settle you in your own land. And then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and I have done it, declares the Lord. Eleven eyes in these few verses. That is the promise of God. I will breathe on you. I will breathe my breath on you. If only you will receive and breathe in. Where we can say, breathe on me, breath of God, until I am holy time. That’s what we sing. Breathe on me, breath of God, and fill me with your fullness. Breathe on me, breath of God, when I am empty and lonely and stuck. Breathe on me, breath of God, when I am so dry that I’m just lying like bones in a valley. Breathe on me, breath of God, even when I don’t understand. Breathe on me, fill me with the breath, with the wind, with the fire of your spirit. Be quiet for a moment. Let’s allow the breath of God to breathe, will we? Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. Breathe, oh spirit of God in this place. Breathe your breath, your life, on each one of us. Thank you for the breath that breathes when we are broken and hurt. Thank you for the breath that breathes when we are filled with joy and happy. Thank you for the breath that breathes when we stand breathless before our King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Thank you for the breath that gives life in all of its fullness. Thank you for your work, Holy Spirit, our comforter, our friend, our helper, the breath of God in us. Breathe, spirit, breathe. We pray in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.  

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/18115449/May-17-Sermon.mp3 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (MSG) 16-18 Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live. Matthew 8:5-10a,13 (NLT) The Faith of a Roman Officer 5 When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a Roman officer[a] came and pleaded with him, 6 “Lord, my young servant[b] lies in bed, paralyzed and in terrible pain.” 7 Jesus said, “I will come and heal him.” 8 But the officer said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. 9 I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,' and they go, or ‘Come,' and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,' they do it.” 10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, “I tell you the truth, I haven't seen faith like this in all Israel! Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) We’re ending our series on prayer today, and starting a new series next week. The new series will be called, At the Right Time. You’ll have to come listen to know what it’s all about, but gonna have some fun with that. That’s a four-part series that we’re doing, kind of just before we hit the summer. And then I’m gonna be gone, I’m gonna leave you alone, and you’ll have some other people that’ll preach for you. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you that the word always speaks into our lives, calls us to that moment to stand before you and ask, so, so Lord, what do you ask of me? In this morning, as always, we pray. We want to see Jesus. And only Jesus. The road of life can sometimes be long and hard, right? Especially when we hit those lonely, those desolate, those broken sections that seem to just kind of go on and on and on. And all you have is prayer. But it’s also true that even the most desolate road will sometimes have its moments of beauty and comfort and care. Maybe you’ll find it sitting in the shade on a hot summer’s day and just being alone for a moment and being able to speak your heart with the Lord. Just talk to him about everything in your life. Maybe it’s in finding that solution for a problem that’s been bugging you for so long and you’ve been struggling with so long. And all of a sudden, there’s the solution that you’ve been waiting for. Maybe it’s in an answered prayer when a prodigal son or daughter finally returns home. No, the thing is this. It is easy to be grateful and to give thanks when things are going well, things are working out for you. But it’s a little more difficult to say a prayer of thanks when life is hard and things are difficult and you’re struggling. So how do we do that? How do we live that? That first congregation that I told you about this morning was huge. But the cool thing about that congregation was it was 4,000 members strong. Just, it’s crazy. The average age was 43. So that’s why I baptised 23 babies. You’ll understand now. So we didn’t have a lot of senior folks there, but there was one beautiful, beautiful lady in that church. 75 years old. I think she was one of the oldest members in the church. 75. The most godly, God-fearing, Christ-following person that you could ever meet in your life sold out to the Lord Jesus. It just radiated from her. Served the Lord with everything in her. And then she got sick. And it was a horrible illness that there was no cure for. It just sucked the life out of her. And we just saw this just going down until at some stage she was bedridden. I would often go visit her. And one day I stopped at her house and we sat talking. I just could see it was a hard, hard day. And I said to her, I can see it’s a tough day for you. She says, oh no, I’ve never been better. And I said, yeah, you’re a good liar like most of us. I can see that. I said, you know, your daughter called me and she said, you’re not sleeping lately. She says, yeah, that’s true. I don’t really sleep much at night. She says, but you know what I can do when I’m awake? I can pray. I talk to the Lord. So every time I’m awake, I just have this wonderful time in the presence of the Lord, just talking to Him and giving my life to Him and allowing Him to speak into my life. And I sat there and boy did I have to swallow because I wanted to cry in that moment. And I’m supposed to be this pastor guy who’s there for her. I just was quiet for a little bit. And we spoke more and we read and we prayed together as we did. When I got in that car, I bawled my eyes out. It was about five o’clock that afternoon. I got a call from her daughter. She said, mom’s gone home to be with Jesus. How do we obtain this kind of victory? How do we die with gratitude despite what’s going on and the struggles and the hurts and the pains? How do we do that? How do we live that victory? Can I give you an answer? By living a life of gratitude. Listen to what the Word says. This is not me. The Bible says this. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 16 to 18. I’m reading from the message for you. Be cheerful no matter what. Pray all the time and thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live. Be cheerful no matter what. Thank God no matter what happens. This is how God wants you who belong to Jesus to live. In Scripture, giving thanks is not just something that I could decide that I want to do every now and then. In Scripture, it’s written right there. It’s not a suggestion but a command. More than a hundred times you’ll find it written. Give thanks to the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. Do not be anxious about anything but through prayer and petition and with thanksgiving. Give your requests to God over and over and over. Give thanks. Thanks. How do we obtain that victory? By living a life of gratitude. I think the first sin was the sin of ingratitude. Remember the story right? This man called Adam and Eve or the man called Adam and his wife Eve. They lived in this beautiful garden called Eden. Eden that means this place of beauty and provision. God put them there and there was everything you could see, you could love, you could want, you could eat, everything. They needed nothing. It was so beautiful that God came and just walked through this garden. That’s how amazing it was. And then the snake slithered in and asked the question about a forbidden tree. They had everything they needed. But all of a sudden Eden was not good enough. There should be more said the devil. And ingratitude moved in like a bully on the block. Can you imagine what would have happened if gratitude won the day? If Adam and Eve scoffed at the devil and said, you get out here you snake. You have no idea. Have you seen this place? It’s got orange groves. It’s got strawberry patches. It’s got apple trees. It’s got blueberry bushes. It’s got it all. You want a tour? Get yourself out of here. But he hissed and he hissed and oh the hisses we hear every day. You need more. You don’t have enough. More cars, more horsepower, more money. More fame, more of this, more, more, more. Sounds like a song, doesn’t it? But here’s the thing. God has given us a way to break that and to step on that thing’s head. It’s called gratitude. Living before the Lord with thanks no matter what. Praying with thanksgiving no matter what. As I was preparing, I was looking for an example and I read this kind of funny, sad story. The lawyer won a case for his client and the client was really grateful for that. And he said, can I take you out for lunch to say thank you? And then we can just square up there. I’ll pay you your bill and everything is well there. But let’s go for lunch and just celebrate this. So they went for lunch, had a wonderful lunch. At the end of the lunch, the client took out of his jacket pocket a brand spanking new genuine leather wallet. And he handed that to the lawyer. The lawyer looked at the wallet, he gave it back. He said, no, no, no, I’m sorry. My fee is $500. Client smiled, took the wallet, opened it up. And he took out 10 $100 notes, counted out five, put five in the wallet. He gave him the wallet back, right? Don’t be too quick in your assessment of God’s gifts in your life. Also in the broken and the desolate and the difficult moments. Thank God every moment, every day, I think of that woman again. It’s been a tough, no, no, I’m doing well because I was in the Lord’s presence. You don’t sleep. Oh, but I’m awake and I can talk to God. Don’t be too quick in your assessment of God’s gifts in your life. Thank you. Father, you are good. Sermon number one. I need help. Sermon number two. They need help. Last week, today. Thank you. But there’s one little element that still comes with that. In the name of Jesus. Why? Another story for you. It comes from Matthew. For this one, I need my glasses because I couldn’t print it as big as the other one. Thanks, Ted. Matthew 8, 5 to 13. When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a Roman officer came and pleaded with him. Lord, my young servant lies in bed, paralysed and in terrible pain. Jesus said, I’ll come and heal him. But the officer said, Lord, I’m not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are and my servant will be healed. I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say go and they go or come and they come. And if I say to my slaves, do this, they do it. When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. And then I’m skipping to verse 13. And then Jesus said to the Roman officer, go back home because you believed it has happened. And the young servant was healed that same hour. This Roman officer understood authority because he stood under authority, but he had authority and understood to listen to him. But when he looked at Jesus, he knew what real authority was. You don’t have to come to my house. What you have, you can stand right here and you can heal that servant. He understood the authority of Jesus. Do we? Do you know the power of the name of Jesus Christ? Do you know the authority that it has when you speak that name? Do you know that Satan and all of his devils, every time we say that name, they cringe. When he was in their presence, you read that often. What did those devils do? Don’t hurt us. Don’t do this because in the name of Jesus Christ, there is so much power. Just think about it. The Roman authority, what did they try to do? They tried to get rid of Jesus. The false religion, they tried to silence Jesus. The devil tried to kill Jesus and they all failed. Even death couldn’t hold him. He could speak a coin from the mouth of a fish. The wind and the storm and the waves listened when he spoke. He spoke to a tree that died. He spoke to a basket and it became a banquet. That’s why we pray in the name of Jesus. Because does he not remind us, Matthew 28, 18. Anyone know what that one is? For I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. All authority. When we pray in the name of Jesus, we talk to our Father because of what Jesus did and because of what Jesus can do in our lives. When I pray in the name of Jesus, it’s not the talisman that I’m using. It’s a declaration. Sickness is not in charge of my life. Jesus is. The economy is not in charge. Jesus is. My grumpy old neighbour that thinks he’s in charge of the world is not. Jesus is. Because in the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he is the Lord. And we pray in the name of Jesus. Why do we pray? Because prayer matters. We pray because prayer is good because God is good. And when you come to those moments where you feel I don’t know the words, try this. Father, you are good. I need help. So do they. Thank you. In Jesus’ name, amen. Take a few moments, silent prayer. Father, you are good. Your goodness and your mercy follow us all the days of our lives. Even if we tried, we could not get away from your goodness. Many of us sit here today, Lord, and we say the words, good Father, I need help. And that might be a need for many things. Thank you that we know that you’re here, that you understand, and that you are there. But Father, there are other people too who need your help. And we pray for each other. We pray that you will hear the prayers of those that we love. We pray that you will hear the prayers of those that we struggle to love. Thank you that you love all of us compassionately. Lord Jesus, thank you for the name above all names. Thank you for what you are, who you are in our lives. We pray this prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/13224917/May-10-Sermon.mp3 Luke 11:5-10 5 Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story: “Suppose you went to a friend's house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, 6 ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.' 7 And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don't bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can't help you.' 8 But I tell you this—though he won't do it for friendship's sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.[a] 9 “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Isaiah 65:24 I will answer them before they even call to me.    While they are still talking about their needs,    I will go ahead and answer their prayers! John 14:13-14 13 You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. 14 Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it! Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Good morning. What an amazing church this is. I had to go for some tests this morning here at the hospital, and I wasn’t sure that I was gonna make it back, and sure what the tests were gonna do. So late night, I text my brother Jimmy, and I said, Jim, I know this is late night. I’m not feeling all that great, and I don’t know about tomorrow. Would you stand in and just be on call if maybe I need you to get up there and preach, and Jimmy said, not a problem. I’ll be there. He made a mistake, though. He said, if you want to, I can take your notes, and I said, Jim, you don’t read hieroglyphics. You won’t be able to read that, and Alexander, I just said, Alexander, maybe Jim’s gonna be there and take care of this and take care of that, and this morning I said to Scott, Scotty, if I can sit for a little longer, it will be really neat. Can you just do the prayer song, and Scott just did the prayer song, and what an amazing place this is, where people give and give freely of themselves. Thank you, Central. You’ve been like that. I’ve been here 25 years. You’ve been like that for 25 years. Our prayers go to David DeVisser’s family. David passed away. It’s in the bulletin. The funeral is Friday at 11 o’clock, Thursday evening, 6 to 8. We’ll have a visitation here at the church. Please continue to pray for David’s family. We’re gonna miss him. He was much loved in this place. As we, in these moments, prepare, Lord, to be in your word and to listen for your word. Thank you that you prepare our hearts. Thank you, Holy Spirit of God. Not only are you the one who inspired these words, but you are the one who takes them and puts them in our hearts, and then you guide us as we live the word. And this morning again, as we pray, it’s always that we want to see Jesus and only Jesus. In your precious name, we pray, Lord. Amen. The phone rings, and on the other end, you just hear this distraught voice of a friend or a loved one. And as they continue talking, and you hear the fear and the hurt and the struggle, and you hear the tears, you sit on the other end, and you wonder, what can I do when the challenge that comes to me from someone else is greater than I am? What I want to help but I feel so helpless, so hopeless. Where do I turn? What do I do with this? This is a problem that Dr. Helen Rosevere faced in her fourth year of 20 years that she would work in the Congo, way back, days before cell phones and all these great things. She was a missionary doctor from England working in the Congo at a small orphanage, a little bit of a hospital there as well. And on this day, in that fourth year of working there, Helen was helping a mother who was giving birth, but it was premature birth, and the mother died during giving birth. She left behind a little prematurely born baby and a two-year-old little girl. She sent one of the teacher midwives to go fetch a warm water bottle, fill it with water, and bring that because they had no incubators. There’s no electricity, none of this stuff to help this little baby. The nurse comes back, and she’s crying. She says, doctor, you won’t believe it. When I poured the water into the hot water bottle, it just burst, and that was the only hot water bottle we have. Here’s this little baby. What do you do? So, they set up a little team that would sleep with the baby and hold them close and put the blankets all over, and they would just do that through the night to keep this little thing going. Next day, during lunchtime, all of the kids of the orphanage was there as well, and Helen would always tell them what’s going on and pray with them. And this day, she told them about the little two-year-old and about the little baby. And their need. Because how would they get a warm water bottle there in the middle of nowhere? There’s no contact. The only way that would happen is if someone would send a parcel from England. But who’s going to send a hot water bottle to someone who lives on the equator, right? So, she tells them, and then they pray. And then this little girl, and you can go read this. Helen wrote this in a book called Living Faith. She writes, this little girl gets up. Her name is Ruth. She’s 10 years old. They all prayed, but one 10-year-old girl named Ruth took it on herself to take the problem directly to Jesus. Please, God, she said, send us a water bottle. It’ll be no good tomorrow, God. The baby will be dead, so please send it this afternoon. And while you’re at it, would you please send a doll for the little girl’s sister so that she will know that you really love her. Helen said she struggled to say amen after this prayer, because how is this ever going to be possible? Where’s this gonna come from? In the four years she’s been there, she’s never even received a parcel from home. So, how? Went along the day, and she was working, and someone came running up and said, there’s someone with a car at your door. She ran out, got there, car was gone, but there’s this huge box, 22 pounds in weight, all beautifully wrapped. So, she thought this must be gifts for the kids. So, she calls the kids. They open the box. They unwrap it. She opens it up. Yes, there’s supplies, bandages, special wool for the folks with leprosy, some sultanas in a bottle, some raisins in cans, and then, as she calls them, jerseys, sweaters for the kids. And as she’s taking them out, her hand feels something, and she’s thinking, no, this can’t be. And she takes it out, and there’s a hot water bottle in the box. True story, I’m telling you right now. As she takes that out, little Ruth sees this, and she comes flying up to the box, and she says, if there’s a hot water bottle, there has to be a doll, too. And she’s in the box, and there’s this beautiful little doll. When Ellen looked at the label on the box, it was sent five months earlier from England. It reminded me of this beautiful word in Isaiah chapter 65, and Ted, you have that on the screen. I will answer them before they even call to me. And while they’re still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers. Do I have to preach? Here’s your sermon. I will answer them before they even call to me. While they’re still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers. The Lord answered little Ruth’s prayer even before she prayed that prayer. As I read that, I not only got emotional about this little girl, but I thought to myself, do I have that kind of faith? A faith that prays so boldly, God, we need a water bottle this afternoon. Tomorrow’s too late, and a little doll while you’re at it. Bold. Right there, right before the Lord accepting the challenge that Jesus gave us. Can you remember the challenge Jesus gave in John 14? It’s up there, Ted. Ask anything in my name, and I will do it. Why? To glorify the Father. Put the rest on there, Ted. Ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. Ruth took God up on that challenge. What about us? What about us? We all need help, right? We said that in the series. Father, you’re good. Last week we said, I need help. We need help for those moments when that engine light comes on and life breaks down, that God needs to step in, and we ask that. But here’s the thing. So do other people, that friend, that neighbour, that loved one that gets on that phone. And God who is faithful in his word and promises to meet my needs is also the God who promises to meet others’ needs. All we have to do is to ask. Father, you are good. I need help. So do they. And with those words, we intercede for other people. Asking God to do his miracles in their lives. It’s a huge gift to be able to do that, but it’s also this awesome responsibility. Father, they need help. Listen to what Jesus says about this. Here’s a scripture passage for the day, Luke 11. Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story. This is Jesus. Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, a friend of mine has just arrived for a visit and I have nothing for him to eat. And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you. But, here’s that biblical but, I tell you this, though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence. And so I tell you, keep on asking and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking and you will find. Keep on knocking and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives. Everyone who seeks finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. See, this is intercessory prayer. In its purest form. It’s a combination of of paucity, that just being succinct, they need help, and audacity. Not tomorrow, Lord. Today, Father, they need help. I can’t help them. But you can. This is the kind of prayer that gets God’s attention. And even that grumpy old neighbour in the end actually got up and opened the door and gave. How much more will my heavenly Father open that door when I knock? The one who never slumbers or sleeps, the one who says my ears are not deaf, that they cannot hear, my hands will always give. How much more will he give when I knock on that door? Father, they need help. Think of Jesus, his whole life. He never refused any intercessory request. Peter brought his mother-in-law. The centurion brought his slave. Jairus brought his dead daughter. And one by one by one by one by one, Jesus continued to take those requests and fulfil them. I’m reading Mark for my own quiet time again, and you read those first three chapters. They just were bringing them to Jesus all the time, and just heal, and just do, and he just did that. He never refuses that. That is the joy of his heart. He did lose it on the disciples once. Matthew chapter 17. I don’t know if you remember the story. His father brought his son who was struggling with epilepsy, brought him to the disciples, and he said, please help. The disciples couldn’t help, so they said, sorry, we can’t help you. Go home. The father didn’t give up, and he went to Jesus. He said, they couldn’t help me, and that’s when Jesus lost it. Why didn’t you bring the boy to me? He said to them. And then he uses a word in verse 20 to explain a little something. He talked about this is unbelief. Belief is to take it to Jesus and to accept that Jesus can do what I cannot do. Unbelief is to say, well, I’m going to try it on my own, and if I can’t do it, sorry, there’s nothing I can do for you. His joy is to hear our requests and to take care of those requests, because here’s the thing. The privilege of intercessory prayer is that we are called, 2 Corinthians 5.20, we are called the ambassadors of Christ. It’s an interesting word in Greek. Here’s your Greek lesson for the day. Do you know what the Greek word for ambassador is? I still owe you a coffee, Dave, now that I think of it. I’ll have to make it two coffees for this one. The Greek word for ambassador is presbyteros, presbyterian. Same word, same word. Ambassadors. We are the ambassadors for Christ so that we speak for Him. We speak on behalf of our neighbours. We speak on behalf of our loved ones. We speak on behalf of those who have needs. You just did it this morning, Scott, and this wasn’t written in the sermon, but you just did it this morning. You prayed for people in the church. You prayed for me. You prayed for David’s family. That’s what we are, ambassadors for Christ to speak for the needs of others when sometimes they cannot speak for their own needs. Father, He puts that in our hearts. Father, they need help. I can’t help them, but you can. When we come and we intercede like this, we acknowledge that I can do it, my inability, but I also acknowledge God’s ability. I come with my empty hands, but I come with high hopes. Ephesians chapter 3. For He can do so much more than we could ever think or dream or fathom. Philippians 4. And He will provide for us from the fullness of His riches. All I have to do. Father, they need help. I want to tell you a little story and I’ll end with that from my own life where I experienced this and when you experience this gift of God, it’s just it’s overwhelming. Back in South Africa, we had this wonderful two people in our church. She was one of the most godly women, Anna Kroenier. Anna and Chris Kroenier. We would go there every Christmas. She would have this Christmas dinner for a few of us and we would just celebrate the birth of Christ with each other and share a meal. And we would always end with worship and prayer. This evening was a little sad because the couple that would always come with us couldn’t be there because the cancer was so intense in this woman’s life. That evening we decided that we were going to pray for her and we were going to lay hands on her. She wasn’t there, but we were going to lay hands on her just as we stood there and say, Lord, we’re doing this and we all stood in a circle and we lay hands on this woman who was not there and we prayed. Father, she needs your help. Father, will you bring healing? Two weeks later, she saw the doctor. They couldn’t find a single cancerous cell in her body. Our inability in intercessory prayers, God, it’s your ability. I can’t do it, but I can pray. I can ask for a hot water bottle in the middle of nowhere and you could do it. The thing that brings so much joy to Jesus’ heart is when we trust him audaciously. With the lives of others, bringing them to Jesus. And the moment I do that, he just opens that pantry door and he says, come on in and come and take as much as you need. We’re never closer to being like Jesus as when we pray for others. So please pray. Pray for those you love. Pray for those you don’t love. And knock. Don’t stop knocking. Father, you are good. I need help. But so do they. And then bring the biggest shopping basket you have because he’s going to fill that basket with so many blessings that you can take to them. Take a few moments of silent prayer. Father, you are good. They need help. And you know who they are. Thank you that we may pray. Thank you that we may be bold like little Ruth, Lord. Audaciously bold. Help us. Help us to remember who you are and what you can do. Thank you. We will pray, Lord. In Jesus’ name.  

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/04214447/May-3-Sermon.mp3 John 2:1-10 The Wedding at Cana 2 The next day[a] there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. 3 The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus' mother told him, “They have no more wine.” 4 “Dear woman, that's not our problem,” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.” 5 But his mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Standing nearby were six stone water jars, used for Jewish ceremonial washing. Each could hold twenty to thirty gallons.[b] 7 Jesus told the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” When the jars had been filled, 8 he said, “Now dip some out, and take it to the master of ceremonies.” So the servants followed his instructions. 9 When the master of ceremonies tasted the water that was now wine, not knowing where it had come from (though, of course, the servants knew), he called the bridegroom over. 10 “A host always serves the best wine first,” he said. “Then, when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less expensive wine. But you have kept the best until now!” Matthew 20:29-34 Two Blind Men Receive Sight 29 As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. 30 Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” 31 The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” 32 Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. 33 “Lord,” they answered, “we want our sight.” 34 Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him. Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) It’s been an interesting week in our household. You get one little germ factory coming home, and then Omar works with the other germ factories, and then she becomes a germ factory, and she comes home, and then germs go everywhere. So it’s been an interesting week. I think I’ve done the best of the three. So yeah, it’s one of those silly, silly weeks that happen. That anthem that the choir sang this morning, boy, you took me back many, many, many years. When I worked at the Christian radio station in South Africa, that was one of the favourite songs I played, but I can’t remember the artist who sang that. There was another woman. It wasn’t just Gloria. There was another… It’s still not the right one, but I’ll find it. She sang it better than any of them, but you did it so beautiful this morning. It just touched my heart, and I just thought of those words again. Jesus, you’re the centre of my joy. All that’s good and perfect comes from you. You’re the heart of my contentment. Jesus, you’re the centre of my joy. Isn’t that true? When we find Jesus, and he touches your life, you find that joy. Not the joy that the world brings that’s here today and gone tomorrow. The joy that carries you through happiness, that carries you through those moments when it’s just hard and tough and difficult, and you can still sing Jesus. You’re the centre of my joy. Thank you for the gift of your words, Lord. Thank you for the gift of prayer, and that we may speak of this amazing gift. May we in this morning, as we speak of our need before you, Lord Jesus, may we see you and only you in your beautiful name we pray. Amen. There’s nothing that can take you from being so happy and life is good to almost having a heart attack faster than when you’re driving in your car and all of a sudden, that little orange engine light comes on, especially if you’re in the middle of nowhere. Now, sometimes you’re lucky and it can still get you to where you need to go. Sometimes, car goes slower and slower, starts making some noise, and it stops. And you know, that’s it. I need help. Sometimes life can be like that too, right? We’re just cruising along on this wonderful path of life and all of a sudden, bam, and something breaks. And you know, I can’t fix it. I need help. So what do you do? Well, if your car breaks down, not so bad. Take out your cell phone. Hopefully, in the middle of nowhere, you have cell phone reception and you call CAA or you call a tow truck and you say, I don’t know what it is. This light came on, made a noise, stopped. I kicked the tyre, didn’t help. I got angry at the car and hit the steering wheel. That didn’t help. I need help. And in life, you tag someone. T-A-G. You take it to Jesus. You admit that you do not have the resources I need. Help. And then you give it to him in faith. You tag him. I need help. And then leave it there because we know in his hands, it’s safe, right? Is it that easy? We struggle a little bit. Maybe we’ll do the T and the A, but sometimes the G of the tag is a little more difficult, that giving it and leaving it. Let me tell you a little bit about a moment like this of being able to say I need help and then letting it go and leaving it. And some of you have heard the story and I’m sorry about that, but I think it’s the best story to explain it. We emigrated to Canada in the year 2002. We came from mid-summer in February to mid-winter. Landed on the 12th of February. What a shock. God, what did you do? And God was good. We ended up in this beautiful place called Central Church that loved us and has loved us for all these years. When we left, I left mom and dad. I’m an only child. Elsie had to leave her mom and her mom was really sick. We knew we would never see mom alive again. So we had to say goodbye to mom. Knowing that, we bought or we took extra money and we put it aside to buy Elsie a ticket to go back to go see her mom. Because when you emigrate, as the Fond of Estes, since they know all about it, it’s not that easy. You take a family of five, you take everything you have, you sell it, and then we divided by eight. I think you divided by 10 when you came. And the little bit you have, that’s what you make a life with. But we kept some there for Elsie because we knew that moment would come. It was June of that year that the doc called a friend of ours and he said, Elsie, if you want to see mom alive, you better come because I don’t think she’s going to make it much longer. So we said, thank you, Lord. We saved the money. Elsie could get on a plane. She went and Elsie went to go see her mother. She stayed for a month. Mom did not die. Elsie had to come back. Elsie came back. She was back one week. We were in the mall in Sears, that was still then of Sears, going down the escalator when the phone rang and her brother said, mom passed away. I could see it on Elsie’s face. She said when she came back, I’m okay. If mom passes, I’m fine. When she got that call, she was not fine. She needed to go bury her mother. We did not have the money. We really did not have the money. By then, we did not have credit. So what do you do? You take it to the Lord. We admitted that we did not have the resources and we gave it to him. Didn’t say anything to this church except on a Sunday morning, I stood and I said, would you please pray for us? Elsie just heard mom passed away this week. We need your prayers. That was it. I came into church that Monday. Why? I don’t know. Went to my office and as I tried to open the door, it was kind of stuck a little bit and I bent down and felt it was something under the door and took it out. It was an envelope and I looked at the envelope. It was thick. It says this is for Elsie to go bury her mother. $2,100. That was the exact amount that Elsie needed to buy a ticket to go bury her mother. I’m not telling a story. It’s the truth. To this day, I don’t know who did that, how that got there, but it did. It’s a true story. All we could say is, I need help. As I sat there and I was crying, it reminded me, Philippians, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition and with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God and the peace of God that transcends all understanding. Regard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. And I was reminded in that moment how faithful God is to his word. If only I can say those simple words, Father, you are good. I need help because you know what happens when I do that. That’s the moment where I take that stuff that I do not have the resources for and I put it in God’s hands and I let it go because God can do it in his time. Remember I said that road sometimes from A to B has ups and downs and twists and turns and sometimes feels that I can’t get to the end, but God can do it. All I need to say is, I need help. I said that this morning because I feel miserable as I stand here. So I sat there, I said, I need help. You know what? I’m going to get through the sermon. I know it. There’s a story that you know well and I’ve preached on this, I think three, four, five times in my life, but not this way. John chapter two. I love John. The easiest Greek in the whole New Testament. You can wake me up 12 o’clock at night and I can understand it. I’m not going to teach you Greek today. We’ll read it in English from the New Living Translation. The next day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’s mother was there and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. The wine supply ran out during the festivities. Now watch. Enter from the left, Mary, Jesus’s mother. So Jesus’s mother told him, they have no more wine. And we just stopped there for a moment. Mary identifies the need. They have no more wine. I need help. She’s not bossy. She doesn’t say, hey Jesus, time for you to show up a little bit. Go down to the corner there. There’s a beautiful vineyard. Bordeaux grapes. You go make those grapes. Immediately be ready. And then just turn them into those beautiful bottles of Bordeaux wine. Bring that up and serve the wine. You can do it, buddy. Go, go, go. Doesn’t do that. She doesn’t try and fix the problem because she does not have the resources. She doesn’t blame someone. She doesn’t say, yeah, this bridegroom, come on, he should have taken care of the wine. What does Mary do? They have no more wine. She states the problem. Now, if I read this correctly, and if you read the previous bit of this correctly, I don’t think Jesus had any intention of doing any work at this wedding except being one of the guests. So what’s his answer? Dear woman, that’s not our problem, Jesus replied. My time has not yet come. I don’t think he planned to turn the water into wine. But Mary had a need. I need help. Mary, typical mother. Oh, she’s so cool. But his mother told the servants, do whatever he tells you. I can see in my mind’s eye, Mary, little twinkle in her eye, just walks away. Do whatever he tells you. I have a need. Take it to Jesus. Admit that you can’t do it yourself and then give it to him and leave it with him. That’s exactly what she did. Do whatever he tells you. I wonder, I wonder what was going on in his mind. And I wish I could see his face. I think I could see this wry smile. Oh, mother. Oh, mother. And yet, she identified the problem. She brought it to him. She left it with him. And what happens? Standing nearby were six stone water jars used for Jewish ceremonial washing. Each could hold 20 to 30 gallons. So Jesus told the servants, fill the jars with water. When the jars had been filled, he said, now dip some out, take it to the master of ceremonies. So the servants followed his instructions. And the rest of the story is history, right? When the master of the ceremonies tasted the water, that was now wine, not knowing where it had come from, though of course the servants knew, called the bridegroom over. And he said, a host always serves the best wine first. And then when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less expensive wine. But you have kept the best until now. Problem, presented. Prayer, answered. Crisis, averted. All we need to do is to say, I need help and take it to Jesus. Hear me when I say this and forgive me when it sounds a little harsh. I don’t take it to the LCBO because what’s that blue stuff? The bad blue or whatever, I don’t drink, so I don’t know this. It won’t help you. Being angry about it won’t help you. Taking it out on others won’t help you. Blaming it on someone won’t help you. Take it to the one who will help you and who can help you. And who wants to help you. And give it to him. Let it go. And I know sometimes we think, but this is just impossible. There’s no way. Because that bam that happened in my life, that’s just so huge. Well, can I end with another story? It comes from Matthew chapter 20. As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us. I have a need. The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder. Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us. I need help. Jesus stopped, called to them. What do you want me to do for you? He asked. Lord, they answered, we want you to do the impossible. We want our sight. And Jesus had compassion. Oh, there’s my Greek word. Sorry. There goes your Greeks. Plach nit somai. That which touches the heart and just turns it right over in itself. Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes, and immediately they received their sight and followed him. I need help. What can I do for you? Because he has compassion. He came into this world for you, for me. He came into this world so that we could see God for who he is, one who cares, one who loves, one who wants to take those things in life that go bam and stop us in our tracks. He wants us to speak to him because that’s why he’s there with his Father, to stand there for you and for me. All I have to say is, Father, you’re good. I need help. Amen.

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/27223739/April-26-Sermon.mp3 Luke 11:1-4 Teaching about Prayer 11 Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” 2 Jesus said, “This is how you should pray:[a] “Father, may your name be kept holy.    May your Kingdom come soon.3 Give us each day the food we need,[b]4 and forgive us our sins,    as we forgive those who sin against us.And don't let us yield to temptation.[c]” Matthew 6:6-8 6 But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. 7 “When you pray, don't babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. 8 Don't be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Thank you for your words, Lord. Thank you for this new series that we may start today as we talk about prayer. Maybe we’ve spoken about prayer a million times. May we hear something new. But above all, Lord, not just hear something new, but may we, through this, be renewed in this wonderful gift that you have given us of talking to you and being able to be quiet and also listen to you. May we see Jesus and only Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen. Our first passage this morning comes from Luke chapter 11 verses 1 to 4, and I’m reading from the New Living Translation. Once Jesus was in a certain place praying, as he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples. Jesus said, this is how you should pray. Father, may your name be kept holy. May your kingdom come soon. Give us each day the food we need and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And do not let us yield to temptation. Hello, my name is Aubrey, and I am a recovering prayer wimp. I have to admit that sometimes during prayer, I doze off. Sometimes my mind will zig and zag, and then it will zig again. And when the ADHD kicks in, I’ll start off with a prayer, and the next thing, I’m busy with a thousand other things, and I forget the thing that I started doing, and that was to pray. Now, it is also true that there are people that really excel at praying. They’re members of the PGA, the Prayer Giants Association. I am a card-carrying member of the Prayer Wimps Anonymous. Maybe you can relate. Maybe the little chuckles I heard tells me that you relate to what I’ve just said. Here’s the thing. Most of us pray to some or other extent. Sometimes we’ll pray when we’re happy. Sometimes we’ll pray when we’re sad. Often we’ll pray when we are in need, when the lump is deemed melanoma. The money runs out before the month runs out. The layoffs start, and we’ll pray. Am I wrong in my presumption, and I don’t want to use the word assumption because that’s not a good word, that most of us wish that we could pray better and deeper and even with a little more faith. So, for the next four weeks, let’s talk a little bit about that, and hopefully by the end of that, we’ll smile a little more about that, and maybe we can hand in our PWA cards and be members of the PGA. Someone used this beautiful image of prayer, said, prayer is like a road. It takes you from point A to point B. Sometimes the road is short. Sometimes the road is longer. It’ll often take you downhill and uphill, and there’s a few twists and a few turns, and sometimes it feels like it’s so long that you’re never going to get to point B, and oftentimes we’ll wonder, is it all worthwhile? It’s not always easy, this road of prayer. Here’s the thing. We’re not the first people to struggle with prayer. If you go check the sign-up list for Prayer 101, you’re going to find quite a few well-known names in there. Jacob, or some of you know him as James, and his brother John, and Andrew, and Peter, and if you don’t know who those are, they were disciples, and when this other disciple comes up and says, Lord, will you teach us to pray? The interesting thing that we find is this. None of those other disciples say, well, it’s you and Jesus. You guys try and sort it out. We’re okay. We’ve sorted prayer out. We’re good. We can go do our own thing. They all stay. It’s also very interesting, if I have my facts right, you’re going to go check me up on this one this week. Sorry, you’re going to check me up on this maybe, but if I have my facts right, this was the only thing the disciples asked Jesus to teach them. Lord, teach us to pray. Did you see Jesus’ response to that? It wasn’t a lecture. It wasn’t a sermon. It wasn’t a dissertation. It wasn’t a seminar. It was a simple, quotable, easy, repeatable prayer. So easy that, would you join me? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. As simple as that. And we know it, and we can repeat it, and everything we needed to say is in there. I think sometimes we complicate prayer too much. Us preachers, we kind of make it difficult. It has to be this, this, this, and this. No, it’s nothing more than a conversation. So in the next four weeks, I’m going to put it into four little things. Each week we’ll talk about one of those, and maybe that’ll make it easier, easy. Father, you are good. I need help. They need help. Thank you, in the name of Jesus. When I wake up in the morning, and I think of the day ahead, Father, driving to work, or to school, or wherever I’m going, I need help. Standing in line, waiting, they need help. And when I come to the end of the day, and I look back on all of God’s grace, thank you, in Jesus’ name. Because that’s the thing about prayer. It is this gift that God gives us, where we can enter into this conversation with our Father. I speak, He listens. He speaks, I listen. And on this road of conversation, these are the moments in which God changes my life. And yes, it’s going to happen that sometimes on this road of prayer, we’re going to run into things that we do not expect. But the amazing thing, it’s nothing that God ever did not expect. Because God is the one who puts me on this road, knows this road, plans this road, and who’s going to get me from A to B, no matter how long it takes, or how up and down it’s going to be. He’s taking me to that point B, that we are talking about. All He asks of me is to take that first step, and get on that road, so we can start. Second thing I want you to notice, did you see the way in which Jesus started the prayer? Father, Abba, loving Father. For a moment, hold on to that, because that’s the important part. Just need to say this, some of us might have, not me, some of us might have grown up, and we do not have the best image of a Father. And if that’s you, I’m really sorry. It breaks my heart. Will you for a moment, if that’s you, just let that go, and just hear about this Father that we are talking about. Because this Abba Father, when the Holy Spirit calls in, Romans 8 says, the Spirit calls in through us, Father, loving Father. That’s who I’m talking about. One who cares, and one who loves, and one who knows you, and one who wants to be there for you, and is there to protect you. That’s how Jesus starts. For me, I see this little image. I don’t know if you’ve seen this in a while. These little kids, and maybe I see it more because I have a seven-year-old that I run around with. Little kids that go to the playground with their dads, and they’re hanging out, and they’re yelling, and they’re laughing, and they’re having a lot of fun, and they, Dad, push me on the swing, and Dad pushes on the swing, and they play tag. And it’s just, but you never hear them say, Father, thank you for being so gracious and driving me in thine splendid vehicle to this amazing place of frolic. Thine benevolence is beyond reproach. Thine care for me is amazing, and thou art so gracious, and neither does God want us to talk to him like that. He wants us to come to him like little kids. Hey, Dad, how’s it going? Hey, Dad, will you push me on this swing? Come to him just as I am. These little ones, they have no filter. Opa, you’re fat. Look at your boot pants. I won’t tell you what a boot pants is. South Africans will know what that is. They’ll just say it as it is, and God wants us to say it as it is. He doesn’t want us to beat around the bush. Thank you for thine benevolence. God doesn’t even want to know what that means, but when I say, God, I need you. Lord, I need you every moment of my life. I need you. That he understands. He doesn’t want us to come to him and to pretend. Hi, Aubrey, how are you doing? I’m fine, and God knows I’m lying through my teeth. He wants us to speak and say, Father God, this is me. This is who I am. We don’t need those words. Remember the old Pharisees and the teachers of the law. They would stand on the street corners, and they had these huge prayers, the thines and the dows and all those things, and they would go on and on and on. Do you know what God does when they do that? He plays them a Shania Twain song. You know which one? You don’t impress me much. Listen to what he says. Matthew 6. But you, when you pray, go away by yourself. Shut the door behind you and pray to your Father in private, and then your Father who sees everything will reward you. When you pray, don’t babble on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask. See, here’s the thing. Heaven does not have a prayer panel that sits with their paddles, and when I pray and I put all the words together, they’ll put up the paddle and say, oh, Aubrey, you got all the thines and these correct today. This is a 10 out of 10. God’s going to answer this prayer. And then the day when I doze off a little bit and my mind zigs and zags, I get a paddle come up that says, this is a two. Go back and try again. Prayer is that conversation between me and my Father who gets me because he made me. And all I have to do, it’s not meant to be judged. It’s not what prayer is. It’s that moment to say, Father, you are good, and I love you, and I know you love me, and Father does, and Father knows. Because you see, the thing about prayer with Father is, he wants to answer those prayers. It’s not judging them. He hears, and he answers, and he takes me on this beautiful journey. Sometimes I think we make the mistake of thinking, I’ll say a few words, and then I’ll go out there, and I’ll do it myself. And then we fail. Prayer is to give it, and to let it go, and to trust him. So can I challenge you? Next time before you face the world, go face your Father first. Father, you are good. So why don’t we try it tomorrow? Tomorrow’s Monday. So Monday morning, the alarm clock lives up to its name. And usually you get up, and the first thing you do is, you take your phone, and you start doom-scrolling on that phone. And you go for the coffee, and you’re still doom-scrolling, and by 15 minutes later, you are so down that you don’t even want to face the day. Can we change that tomorrow? When that alarm clock goes off, don’t reach for the phone. Go get a coffee, because I don’t think God wants to face us without coffee, because we’re way too grumpy. Go get that coffee, but instead of going for that phone thing, go find your favourite chair. Just go sit. And your hair might still be in a mess, and you still might have a little bit of the creases from the pillow. God doesn’t care. What he does care about is that moment of saying, Good morning, Father. It’s so cool to start my day with you. Thank you for your, and just to speak, and to give it to him, and see if maybe the day looks a little different, despite of the little things that are going to happen. Because you started by saying, Father, you’re good. I need help. They need help. Thank you for answering in Jesus’ name. Come sing. We have this song that we’re going to sing every week. Today, we’re just going to do the verse, one verse, and the chorus, and you’re going to start getting to know this. Gary was just dumped on her this morning. She just has to do it. So I’ll sing with you, but I’m going to sing from there. No, I’ll make a mess. Okay. When the night won’t loosen its grip on my chest, And the answers don’t come no matter how hard I confess, My strength feels borrowed and my hope feels thin. I’ll fall on my knees and begin again. When I don’t have the words, do you hear my heart? Even my silence knows who you are. I will pray when the road feels long. I will pray when the faith feels gone. I will pray through the tears and pain, till the light breaks through the rain. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but I know you’re listening. So with every breath I have today, I will pray. When I’ve said all I can say, I will pray. When I’ve said all that I can say, Father, thank you. Thank you for that road that leads for the ups and the downs. And because as we travel this road with you, we learn so much more about you. And we learn to trust you, Lord. Freewheeling down that downhill and knowing that we’re going to get up the hill because that’s what you teach us as we pray. Thank you, Father. You are good. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/21121523/April-19-Sermon.mp3 Hebrews 4:14-16 Jesus the Great High Priest 14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,[a] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 10:19-25 A Call to Persevere in Faith 19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Transcript (Transcribed by TurboScribe) As you saw, we’re starting a new series next week, Sun Prayer, a short series of four, looking really forward to that. And at the end of the service, I’m going to ask you after the benediction to sit, the song that you heard a little piece of this morning, it’s an AI song, and I heard this and it’s so beautiful. So I went to Carrie and I said, can we do this as the song for the whole series? She said, sure, but it has no music. And we can’t find any music for that. So our music team sat down and they produced that music and all of that to go with that. And they’re going to do that song for us this morning as our postlude. And I want you to hear that because with God’s grace, we’re going to sing that every week for four weeks after the sermon saying, Lord, I want to pray. When you hear me, I’m going to pray. When I think you don’t hear me, I’m going to pray. When times are good, I’m going to pray. When times are not good, I’m going to pray. Still, I will pray, is the name of the song. We’re going to do that. So thank you to the praise team for all the work that they put into that. It’s wonderful to have people that’ll just say, yeah, I’m going to do that. Bless you. Thank you for your word that guides us. Thank you for your word that feeds us. Thank you for the word that just paints this beautiful picture, Lord, of who you are. Help us in this morning again, that as we read and as we try and speak, that we may see Jesus, the love of Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen. Now, scripture reading this morning comes from the book of Hebrews, chapter four. We’re going to read verses 14 to 16, and then we’re going to go to chapter 10 and read verses 19 to 25. And I’m reading from the NIV today. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus, son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. And then we go to chapter 10. Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and a living way opened for us through the curtain that is his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings. Having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit, I think they missed the word there, bad habit of doing, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence to receive mercy and to find grace to help us in our time of need. Go underline that verse in your Bible and read it every day. It is one of the most beautiful promises that God makes, one of the most beautiful invitations that God gives in his word. Let us approach this throne of grace with confidence so that what can happen, we may receive mercy and find God’s grace to help us in our time of need. That word time of need in the Greek is one word. It’s a beautiful word. It’s the word eukairon. You’ve heard the word kairos before, the kairos documents. Remember it was a big deal at some state. The word kairos in Greek means a defining moment. Let’s go to God’s throne in all of the defining moments of our lives, those moments that will change our lives, those moments in which we stand before God saying, help me or God rejoice with me or be with me. But then it starts with the most beautiful word of all of those words. Let’s go to God’s throne of grace with confidence. Greek word and Central knows by now when I retire they will all be fluent in Greek and Hebrew. Greek word for confidence is the word paresia. Paresia means boldness, frankness, confidence. It comes, it’s a technical term that comes from the old Greek city states. Paresia meant that if you were a citizen and you had citizenship of that city state, you had the right to speak in the assembly and that right was called paresia. You could stand up and you could speak and if we put it in today’s words, you could make motions and you could vote on the motions as well because you had paresia, you had confidence. It was your right to do that. That’s the objective side but there’s a subjective side on this too. It only became your right in that moment when you stood up and you spoke and you used that. Can you hear the words? Since we have paresia, that’s what chapter 10 said, that’s why I took you there. Since we have verse 19, this confidence, then what should we do? Verse 22, let us then draw near to God. It’s given. We have the right. You’re citizens of God’s kingdom. You’re children of the most wonderful father in the whole wide world. The king of the universe is yours and he said here’s the right that I give you. Will you please use that and walk into my holy presence? Can we talk about that for a second? How we do that, when we do that, do we do that? But I want to start in the old testament and this is where I’m going to need you Alexander because I was told you do not touch that yoke. Jay will come and he will, I don’t know where Jay is sitting this morning, maybe he wouldn’t. He’s my doc. He would come give me a hard time because my back should not be lifting this. Come on up Alexander. You got to do the high lifting here. Don’t lift it up yet. You can just hold it kind of up straight if you can get it out there. But I take you to the book of Leviticus. I’m going to read one verse and I know you do not read one verse because there’s a context. So I’ll give you the context. Context comes from chapter 26. God brought them into the promised land and now God says to them because you’re obedient I’m going to reward you. I’ll make it rain. I’ll take care of your crops. I’ll give you cattle and I’ll give you sheep. If you keep the Sabbaths I will bless you in so much abundance because you are obedient. And then God says here’s the reason why I want to do this. I’m the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the yoke of slavery from your neck so that you can walk with your heads held high. I wanted to show you a yoke because most of you I don’t think have even seen a yoke. If you’re younger you don’t even know what that is. You think it’s a thing that comes in an egg. This is a yoke. This is one that you put on cattle. This was actually one that my wife’s father used on his farm with the cattle. They go on your neck and you can imagine if you put this thing on your neck. No don’t do that. You’re going to put that on your neck. This is what it does. Thank you Alexander. You can not put it on my neck. You can put it down. Thank you. I want you to just keep that image for a moment and see what God says. He says when you were in Egypt you were slaves. They did not necessarily bear a yoke like that but they bore the yoke of being slaves. You were not allowed to look up and look people in the eye. You had no rights. They bore the heavy burdens every day as they were building those two cities. They would carry that on their backs and your head is always down. You have no rights. You have nothing to say. God says when I brought you out, I took that yoke off your back. I took it off your neck so that you may walk with your head held high. We may approach the throne of grace with confidence, with our heads held high because the yoke and the burden of sin has been lifted off. We may walk into that room, that throne room of our heavenly Father and we may look our Father in the eye and say, Lord, I need you every moment of my life. I need you. You’re my one defence. You’re my righteousness. Oh, you may be bold and say, I can walk in there and I can say, Father, Father, can you just take my hand, please? It’s a little tough right now. I can’t do this alone. I need you to walk with me, not just a mile. I need a few more miles than that and maybe, Father, if you don’t mind, can you just carry me for a while? I can walk in there. Like Romans says, then the Holy Spirit can call out in me, Romans 8, Father, I love you and I know exactly that’s who you is because it is a throne of grace where I can find peace, mercy, and grace for my times of need. Why can I do that? Why can I do that? Verse 14, 15 gives the answer. He says, because we have a grand new high priest right there in heaven, not one who was distant from us on this earth because you looked at him and he was all gowned and robed and all kinds of stuff around him and he was holier than thou. We have a high priest in heaven who was just like us, who walked this earth with his own feet, who felt the hurt of his own people turning their backs on him, who felt his friends betray him, who would hear people yell crucify, who would know what it meant to have no house to sleep but always with a friend sleeping on the couch, who would know the burden of carrying the yoke of all I’ve ever seen, who would know the burden of being nailed to a cross and not having a moment that he could walk into that throne room because Father had to turn his back and close his ears when his son cried. My God, we have a high priest that understands us and when I walk into that throne room and I can bring myself, he gets it. He gets me in all of my goodness, in all of my struggles, in all of my needs, in my yukairon moments, my moments of need where I stand before you. I don’t know where you are in your life and maybe you’re full of joy. Here’s the cool thing, you can go right into that throne room and go spring jump and dance and sing with him because he wants to do that with you. Maybe you’re in the struggle time if I think of Lorna and I think of Alan Goberdan as they had to go down to New Jersey to go bury a brother and a mother. In that moment they could walk right in that throne room and Father God would understand and he would hold them to his heart because that high priest when they walked in there would say, Father, this is Lorna and Alan. Right now, Father, we need you so bad. You can go to him because you have paresia, confidence, bought in the blood of Jesus Christ. But here’s the coolest thing of all of this. If I take you back to the Old Testament again, remember in the Old Testament the high priest and only the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies. Remember the temple was built where they would sacrifice and then they had the holy place and then they had the most holy place and then the most holy place was behind this curtain and there was the Ark of the Covenant. Had Aaron’s staff and there it had the tablets that were broken and the new tablets and there it had the manna in there to remind them of what God did in the wilderness but also to remind God of how they rebelled against God was in there. On that was the cherubim that was the seat where God would sit and would look down on all of this. Once a year, Leviticus 16 on Yom Kippur, Yom in Hebrew day, Kippur, atonement. On the day of atonement the high priest could go behind that curtain. He alone, after he was cleansed and brought sacrifices for his own sin, could go in there with blood and he would sprinkle that blood on the Ark of the Covenant. The cover of the Ark of the Covenant is called Kippuret, Yom Kippuret, the atonement seat and he would make atonement for the sins of the people. It was such a holy place that he alone could go in once a year but if he did something wrong he would die because you were not supposed to see God. So they put a rope around his ankle that if he died in there they couldn’t go in. They could just pull him out. It is the cool thing about that, says Hebrews. There was a Friday there in the afternoon and on a Friday the world became really, really dark. There was a man on a cross and his name was Jesus. In that moment when he died and he took that burden upon himself, that curtain that stood between us and God, fell away. And in that moment through the blood of the Son, he opened a new path right into the throne of God. And you and I may walk right into that throne room. There is no more curtain. You can walk right up to your Father. And when I walk in there, Jesus stands there smiling and he says, Father, it’s Aubrey again. Boy, this guy can never stop. Gotta tell you about him a little bit, Father. He’s giving me a run for my money. He’s, he messes up so often. He’s with his face in the mud and I have to pick him up and I have to cleanse him again. But I know he loves us, Father God. So I walk with him. Boy, does he give the Holy Spirit, you know, because Holy Spirit that’s his job, isn’t it? To walk right beside and to help. Man, does the Holy Spirit have to walk with him all the time to keep him on the right path and to help him? So Father, I’m so glad that he’s here. And Father smiles when he sees me. And Father says, what can I do? And I can just open my heart and I can speak because here’s the thing. Despite the fact that I mess up so often, despite the fact that I hurt him so often because of the stuff that happens in my life, when I walk into that throne room, my Father does not do this. Sorry, I never point fingers at you, do you know that? Feels horrible. My Father never does that because that was taken care of that Friday on a cross. All of the judgement was taken care of. All of that slavery was taken care of. My Father tells me to lift up my head and look him in the eyes and see his face. Despite of who I am, but because of who he is and what he has given me. Because I am his child and I have been made free and I have been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. That same blood that this morning said to little Colby, little girl, here’s my sign and my seal. I’m washing you and you, little girl, can walk right into my throne room anytime you need me because I am your Father and you are my child. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Thinking, not a person yet. We are allowed to walk into the presence of our God with confidence to receive what? Mercy and grace. You know what grace is? God’s free gift. For it is by grace that we have been saved through our faith. That faith says Hebrews 10 that is washed in the blood of Jesus Christ and says come walk in. It’s kind of like this little boy that sat with me this morning this week. It was a tough week and one evening I was sitting reading and he came up to me and he said, hey Opa, can I sit on your lap for a little while? I said sure buddy boy. He jumped on my lap and he put his little head against my chest and I just held him. Didn’t say a word. He just sat. His ear was right on my heartbeat. I’m sure he heard me. Sat for about 3-4 minutes and looked up. He said, thank you Opa. I think I’m okay now. He got up and went and played. Since we have confidence, let us then draw near to God. You need to sit on his lap for a while. He’s okay with that. You need to cry with him a little bit. He’s okay with that. Bette Midler got it wrong. Remember she sang a song, God is watching us from a distance. Nah, not true. God opened his throne and he said, my son did this for you. Come on in. He’s not in the distance. He’s right with you. Everything is fine. It’s up to us to be the walking voice, to walk in with confidence and to receive the gifts that God has for us. May you walk with your head held high and not with one of those yearnings because it’s taken away. Walk, Opa. Let God speak. Amen. Take a few moments of silent prayer. Lord Jesus, thank you for going to the cross. Thank you for taking all of our sin, bearing that and then washing our sin with blood. It has fallen right so beautifully in Colossians and then when you did that there on the cross and you washed, you took it away forever and you never seem to do it again. Help us then not to make ourselves slaves again, but to walk freely. Thank you that every day we may ask that you will walk with us through your spirit. But Lord, on our own we can’t do this. Every moment, every hour of our lives, we need you. We need you to walk. We need you to talk. We need you to evolve us. Thank you for reminding us of who we are, the children of the most high and holy. You’re amazing and we love you with all that is in us. In this we pray in the amazing name of Jesus, our great High Priest. Amen.

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/14190039/April-12-Sermon.mp3 Luke 24:13-35 On the Road to Emmaus 13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles[a] from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him. 17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 “What things?” he asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.” 25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. 28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” 33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread. Transcription (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Joan and Gary, boy, it’s good to see you. It’s just, I’m saying to Gary, it seems that retirement kind of don’t have money for her. It is so good to see you, Joan and Gary. They’re all over the place now. They’re, they’re, yeah, it is just so cool to see you this morning. I’m always happy to see folks. They come back and they come visit. Did so many wonderful things with you over the years, and it’s always a blessing to look up and see. As I, as I prayed in my prayer, please continue to pray for Amira and her family. Amira was in Kuwait when the bombing started. Her sister passed away and she was there. She and her mother, they were both out, and Amira’s back in Canada. So with God’s grace, we’re happy about that. Got really sad news this, this week. My first colleague in my first congregation was murdered in his house this past week, and that’s just horrendous. He and the guy who worked in the garden for him seemed to have had a little moment, and the next thing his wife heard, someone yelled, and she saw the guy wash his hands and blood coming off him when she came out. Her husband was, was not there. So really sad, sad moment. Pray for their family as well. Not, not the kind of things that we want to hear. We need to pray for, for one another. Thank you for the amazing words that we can read together this morning and spend a few moments in. And I always pray, Lord, may we see Jesus and only Jesus, but in this one, we are really just going to see Jesus in action. And what a moment. Thank you. We wait in expectation. In your name we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen. Going to Luke chapter 14. And thank you, Grace, for getting those pictures on there. Much appreciated. Luke 14, going to start verse 13. Now that same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them. But, and always this but thing, but they were kept from recognising him. He asked them, what are you discussing together as you walk along? They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them named Cleopas, and we think most scholars will say that the other person that was with him was his wife, Mary. One of them, Cleopas, asked him, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem? Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? What things, Jesus asked. About Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. And here’s an important but, that we had hoped, we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it’s the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. Actually, it’s a very bad word that they use in Greek here, Existemi, which actually means some of the women lost their minds. Some of our women lost their minds. They went to the tomb early this morning, but they didn’t find his body. And then they came and told us that they’d seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. And then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the woman had said, but they did not see Jesus. And so the empty tomb. He said to them, how foolish you are. How slow to believe all the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, stay with us for it’s nearly evening. The day is almost over. So he went in to stay with them. And when he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, were not our hearts burning within us as he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us? They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the 11 and those with them assembled together and saying, it’s true. The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon. And then the two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus was recognised by them when he broke. What a beautiful story. So we, we meet these two followers of Jesus on their way to Emmaus, but they’re not just on their way towards Emmaus. They’re also on their way away from Jerusalem. And you can hear this in their voices that they need to put this behind them and leave it there and just get away from it. Verse 21 will say it so clearly, the disappointment, the disillusionment, this, this departure away from hope when it says, but we had hoped that this Jesus was the one. We had hoped that he was the one who was going to change everything. We had hoped, but hope has died. And so we turn our backs and we leave and we go to Emmaus. As I read that and I was, I was writing and I’m saying, Lord, help me. How, what do I say? How do I preach such a well-known text? I’m sitting there and I wrote, it kind of makes me feel when you think of them, of this world in which we are living right now, it’s a mess. You don’t know what you’re going to find when you wake up the next morning, whether there’s another war, whether this war is going to escalate. We don’t know whether there’s another tariff coming and whether the oil is going up and whether food is going to, through the roof that we cannot pay for that. We’re so uncertain of ourselves. People are, are so, if you look at the world, ready, we’re just ready to bite each other. And it’s kind of a scary place, but we had hoped. And I said to myself, so, so when you write that down, Aubrey, you’re, you’re not a negative person because I’m not. So, so what is the next thing that you write? And the next thing I wrote down is the question, so how do we, as those who follow Christ Jesus, how do we live in this kind of world? What kind of pictures do we paint with our words when we speak to each other? Because I can stand here this morning and I can send you out those doors so negative that you don’t want to come back next week. What are the kind of words that we paint? What do we paint with our words when we talk to each other, when we are there in our conversations at school, at home, at work? What pictures do we paint with our actions, the way in which we treat each other, the way in which we live in this world? What pictures do we paint for ourselves with our thoughts? No one else can see, but I can. We paint these pictures. Are there pictures of hope? Hope in this Lord Jesus that one week ago we stood in this place and we were celebrating. Jesus Christ is risen today and you said, amen, He is risen indeed. Are there pictures of hope in that risen Lord Jesus Christ that sits on His throne and is in control of this world, even when this world sometimes, like now, feels a little out of control? Do we do the but or do we paint pictures of hope? Because there is a world out there that needs those who love Jesus Christ and know Him as their Lord and their Saviour and the King of this world and the King of their lives to say that, to live that, to show that. What pictures are we painting or are they maybe pictures of hopelessness? Let’s try and answer for ourselves as we walk through scripture. So there’s a little background. Now let me take you back. So these two are walking and the next thing Jesus walks with them and here’s the first little surprise. Jesus does not give up on people who are hopeless doubters. And you’re saying, Aubrey, it’s not a surprise. We know that. You know that, but context. Did you see what day it was? Verse 13 said, on that same day. Which was the same day? Verse 1 tells us, early on that first day of the week. It was the Sunday when Jesus rose from the dead. Wouldn’t you think that He had come, He had done His work, He died on the cross, went into the grave, grave was opened, that now Jesus is in heaven with God and He’s being celebrated by all His angels and they’re singing and dancing and they’re hallelujah and He’s taking up His throne and now He’s sitting there on His throne ruling this world. Wouldn’t you expect that’s what would have happened? Where do you find Him? He’s on the road with two hopeless doubting. That’s the kind of Lord that we serve. Not the Lord that puts Himself in some throne somewhere and disappears, but the Lord who walks with hopeless doubting. As you see, here’s the thing about Jesus. He didn’t just tell the stories or call them parables, whatever you want to call them. Didn’t just tell the stories, He lived the stories. And He’s just living one of those stories right now, Luke 15. Who knows what that is? You can get a coffee if you can tell me what’s Luke 15. My coffee’s safe. What have I done in 25 years? You don’t know what’s in Luke 15? It’s easy. It’s a story about two boys, 10 coins, and a hundred sheep. Remember the story now? And what was the story about the hundred sheep? Shepherd had a hundred sheep and one got lost. And what did he do? He left the 99 and he went for the one. And two were walking away in hopelessness from Jerusalem to go sit in Emmaus. And Jesus goes after the two. Because you see, here’s the thing about Jesus. He does not like to see the backs of His children turned on Him. Maybe the Hebrew word for repentance is even more beautiful. The Hebrew word for repentance is shuv, which means to turn around. And that’s what Jesus wants. He does not want to see the back. He’s saying, turn around. Look at me. Look at me. I want to be there for you. And I ask you, when you go through those difficult times and those times in your own life when you doubt, because we all end up there every now and then, when you feel like hope is kind of a distant, distant thing, when life can sometimes deal you some cards that are not the greatest cards in the world, what do you do? Don’t walk away from Jerusalem because Jesus got your back. He’s got your back. He’s there for you. He wants you to turn around and He wants to look into your eyes, even those eyes that are saying, I doubt right now, Lord Jesus. I’m not so sure. He wants to look right into them. He wants to see your face, even if the tears are running down your cheeks, because how difficult and how tough it is. He wants to hold you and love you. He does not want to see your back. He’ll make time to come. He didn’t just scoot off. He knew I needed to go talk to Cleopas and Mary. I needed to be there with them. And He’s going to be there with you when you walk sometimes on your own road. By the way, did you see they went back to Jerusalem? They thought they could walk away, but he doesn’t. Then the second thing happens. Let me take you back to the story. So now he starts this conversation with them. That’s how Jesus works. And as I was writing that, I thought, man, if it was me, I wouldn’t have done that. These two walking away, I would have done something to get them back. I would have walked and said, could I have the water bottle, please? And can I have a cup? And I would have poured some water in that cup. And I would have said, have a sip. And I would have done a miracle. And they would have drank some wine. And I would have said, gotcha. Why are you doubting? Why are you not hoping? But Jesus doesn’t do that, does he? What does Jesus do? He asks them, so get it out. Talk to me about this. We hoped about Jesus. We thought he was the prophet. We thought he was going to do all of this. And then it’s a mess. The women come telling stories. There’s just an open grave. There’s no Jesus there. No angels there. No nothing there. It’s all just kind of over and done with. And then Jesus doesn’t do a miracle. What does he do? He does a Bible study with them right there on the road. Verse 25, 26, 27. And Jesus said to them, man, did you get it all wrong? Didn’t you read? And then he takes them back to the whole Old Testament. Moses and the prophets. And he talks to them about them. And he says, here’s the problem, guy and girl. Here’s the problem. You had this wrong. This world has it wrong. They wanted to see a Messiah who would be a king, who would sit on a throne, who would get rid of the Romans. And then he would be king and rule over them like a king. But you didn’t read the scriptures properly. What did the scriptures say about me? Scripture says Messiah would come, but Messiah would be what? The servant of the Lord. More than that, he would be the suffering servant of the Lord. Did you ever read Isaiah? By his stripes, we are healed. By his wounds, we are made safe. They would look at him and not want to look at him because they would hurt him so badly. That’s what Messiah would come to do. Isn’t that what Messiah did? See, they didn’t need a miracle. They needed the Word. Because they would have to go out into this world and answer the questions of people that would have the same questions as they had. And the only way that they would be able to answer those questions was if they were in the Word. How you and I get through this? How do we walk and work in this world? In the Word. Psalm 119 verse 105. What does that say? There’s a coffee up again. You know it. Oh, there goes the coffee. You got it, Dave. Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. In this dark world, how do we walk? In the Word. Because the Word will give you light, will walk you where Jesus wants to walk with you, will protect you. Because it is His Word. It is alive and well and living. And that’s why He doesn’t just say, guys, here’s a miracle. Boom, it’s me, Jesus. He takes them to the Word because the Word is what they would need to continue living in this world. Second Timothy 3.16. And there’s no coffee in this one. And I’ll be broke by the end of the day because I know Dave will know this one too. Second Timothy 3.16. What does that say? The whole Scripture is, sorry, God breathed the Greek word so beautiful, theopneistos, theos, God, pneuma, the Spirit of God. The whole Spirit was breathed by God and fulfilled with the Spirit. And then listen how He says it in the New Living Translation. And it is useful to teach us what is true, to make us realise what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. Why does He do the Bible study with Him? Because that Scripture will improve our lives, will help our lives, will help us to walk through the doubt and the hopelessness and the difficult and the upside down days, because this does not change as much as our Lord and our God do not change. The Scripture is what we need to do every day of our lives. It will bring the light that we need. Let me end. One more little surprise. So they get to where they need to turn off to Emmaus and Jesus pretends to be going the other way. I love how cool He does this whole story, right? And of course, Cleopas and Mary say, come with us. Come, come, stay with us. Spend the night. It’s dark. He goes in and spends time with them. Did you notice something strange in that text? Who’s the guest? Jesus. Who breaks the bread? Would you expect that from the guest? We should always watch those little things, right? Don’t miss, because that’s where the surprise lies. Because they sit there and instead of them taking that bread and breaking the bread and passing it to Jesus, Jesus breaks the bread, passes the bread to them. And in that moment, they realise it’s the Lord. In the moment that Jesus shows them who He is again, the servant in serving, in giving, the miracle happens of them seeing the Lord Jesus. Jesus becomes visible in this world when the children of the Lord serve like the Lord served. Yes, we can have arguments and words, but people see the Lord at their best, and we become servants. When we have crucified hands like Jesus, hands that will give freely, hands that touch gently, hands that are open and do not point, judging, but give loving hands and hold. Jesus becomes visible in this world when our feet are crucified, and they walk where Jesus would walk, into all those places that are dark and difficult and hard, where the world is not one to go. When maybe, and I hook on, and this wasn’t written in the sermon, but I was just thinking of you, when we go and we serve downtown and we pick up some junk, we see Jesus, because those feet are crucified and they walk, because that’s where He would have been, and His hands would pick them up, because that’s so Jesus. I started the question, how do we live in this world? What kind of pictures do we paint? I’m sure we paint those pictures of hope, because we know there isn’t more. Amen. Take a few moments of silent prayer. Lord Jesus, thank you for always looking for us. That one little sheep that would walk off, or that one coin that would fall and go into the dark place, and actually two boys, not just one, who were lost, and you always stand looking, waiting, searching, and that’s what you do. Thank you that we have been found. Thank you for your Word. Thank you for your Holy Spirit. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for being the servant of the Lord. May we serve, because in serving, you might be saved. In your precious name, we pray. Amen.

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/31161222/March-29-Palm-Sunday-Sermon.mp3 Matthew 16:21-28 (NLT) Jesus Predicts His Death 21 From then on Jesus[a] began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead. 22 But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him[b] for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!” 23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God's.” 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. 25 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. 26 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?[c] Is anything worth more than your soul? 27 For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and will judge all people according to their deeds. 28 And I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.” Transcription (Transcribed by TurboScribe) Palm Sunday begins on a road leading to Jerusalem. A king enters the city, not with armour, not with force, but on a donkey. Palms wave in the air like declarations of victory. Voices cry, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They were celebrating a king, but didn’t understand the kind of king he was. Because this celebration is moving somewhere. The cheers of Sunday are already casting the shadow of Friday. This same road leads to a cross. Palms will give way to thorns. Shouts will fall silent beneath the weight of nails. Yet this is not a story of loss. It’s a story of love. Because the cross was never the end. It was the doorway. Palm Sunday leans toward an empty tomb. Toward a morning where death is defeated and hope rises with the sun. The king who came in humility will rise again in victory. Good morning. It’s good to see so many of you and to see your faces on this Palm Sunday. Alexander just said he forgot to remind you that there is a Maundy Thursday service, but it’s online only. So if you go to the website, it will be online and you can watch the Manndy Thursday service online. Father God, thank you for these moments, moments in your holy presence. We’ll hear your words again this morning, Lord Jesus, as you remind us why you came into this world. Help us then to see you and honour you. In your holy name we pray. Amen. I’m sure you’ll agree with me if I say that this amazing life that God gives us, with all of its joy and happiness and also sometimes with a struggle, isn’t always easy and sometimes really painful. There’s many reasons for that. We suffer loss. We struggle. We fail. We get angry. We get frustrated. All of these things and it causes pain. But maybe the most difficult of all of these challenges is the pain of surrender. That moment that I stand before God and I look God in the eye and I say, Lord, here’s my everything, my whole life, and I want to give that to you in a surrender. And from now on, Lord, you lead and I will follow. Because just think, most of us like to lead. Most of us like to make the decisions. Most of us like to be in control. And all we want of God is to follow behind and clean up the messes. So the question we’re going to ask this morning, and each of us has to answer that for themselves, is the question in my life, who leads and who follows? It’s a little bit of the question of Palm Sunday. Because for Jesus to get to that open grave, he had to surrender. And it started on Palm Sunday. So read with me Matthew 16. That was interesting. When I saw this, my last sermon here before I went off was from Mark, and it was the same passage, not the same sermon. So Caesarea Philippi is where they are. You’ll remember that, where Jesus asked the question, who do you say I am? And then we go in Matthew from verse 21, and I’m reading from the New Living Translation. From then on, Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders. Presbyterians, you know that. The word for elder in Greek is presbyteros. He didn’t suffer by the presbyterians. By the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but, and that is a big biblical but. He would be killed, but on the third day, he would be raised from the dead. But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. Heaven forbid, Lord, he said, this will never happen to you. Jesus turned to Peter and said, get away from me, Satan. You’re a dangerous trap to me. You’re seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s. And then Jesus said to his disciples, who wants to lead, who wants to follow? If any of you want to be my follower, you must give up your own ways. Take up your cross and follow me. For if you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. So what do you benefit if you gain the whole world, but you lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? For the Son of Man will come with His angels in the glory of His Father and will judge all people according to their beliefs. And I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Son of Man coming in His glory. So here we have Jesus in this discussion with His disciples, telling them what’s waiting for them as they journey to Jerusalem. For what they’ll see in a moment is they’ll go in there and they’ll hear the Hoshana, save us, Lord. They’ll hear what we just sang. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Baruch haba b’Shem Adonai. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. They’re going to hear all of this, and they’re going to see this King. And Jesus says, stop. Let me tell you what’s really going to happen when you see all this. I’m going to Jerusalem because I am surrendering to the plan of God. I’m going there, and they will take me prisoner, and they are going to torture me, and I am going to suffer, and they are going to nail me to a cross, and I am going to die. But on the third day, God is going to let me walk out that tomb. And when you read this, and when you go read it again, you’ll see that when Jesus says this, you cannot feel in the language that there’s regret or a heaviness or, oh, my Holy Moses, why am I having to go and do this? Yes, He says, it’s going to be hard. Yes, it’s going to be difficult. I am going to suffer. I am going to be nailed to a cross. I am going to die. But, and there’s that big biblical but, on that third day, God is going to show up, and I am going to walk right out of that grave. Can you hear that, my friends? What He’s saying is this, if I am prepared to surrender and give it up to God, God will show up on the third day. Sometimes the third day is longer than three days. Sometimes the third day feels like it’s never going to happen. And Satan will stand, as he did outside the tomb of Jesus, and he was celebrating because he’s gone and dead. And on that third day, God says, arise, my love, arise, my love. Death no longer has a hold on you. And Jesus says to you and me, if you surrender your life to me, and you give it up, and I lead, and you follow, whatever it might be, there is a third day, and on the third day, God shows up. Is there any Baptist in this church that can say amen? Because that God that shows up is a good God, and a loving God, and a caring God, a God who knows me, and a God who gave His only Son for me. If I surrender, God shows up. Always. And this is not a biblical, well maybe it is, biblical, but this is one of ours. It’s a causal relationship. Jesus, being obedient and going to the cross, causes God to show up and open that grave. If Jesus did not go to the grave and give it all up, there would be no third day. Not for Him, not for me, not for you, and not for anyone. When I surrender, God shows up. Didn’t sit well with Peter. By now we should know that. And Peter has a word to say. In that beautiful verse 22, Peter took him aside and said, Heaven forbid, Lord, that would never happen to you. Now, if it wasn’t so serious, we could have a little chuckle out of this. Because just think about it. Here’s Peter looking at the Son of God, trying to stop the Son of God from doing what the Son of God had come to do in this world from the beginning. The irony is also a little sad. Peter, in doing this and just being so in a hurry, he misses, doesn’t see what it means for God to show up. Because Peter’s doing the Peter thing and the us thing. Peter’s looking out for Peter’s own interests. He’s thinking, Jesus, we’ve got a good thing going. Look at all the people with us. They’re just coming. We’re going to Jerusalem. It’s the feast. Do you know how we can build that congregation? Do you know how we can build this movement? We’ve got a good thing going. Don’t you talk about dying and stuff like that. Because here’s the thing. Peter’s looking out for Peter’s best interest. And the problem is so many of us fall into that same trap. And we think, if I lead, if I do the things, if I stay in command, if I do, then I’ll be fine. Because it’s for my best interest. How sad the answer that Jesus gives him. And no wonder Jesus is a little sharp in his answer. Because in doing what Peter is doing, he’s violating the most fundamental characteristic of God. Of who God is. Of who God works. Of how God functions in this world. And that is that God is always looking out for the best interest of others. When this world was messed up, he called the Noah. And he started over. When he needed to start out new, he called the man Abraham from Ur. And brought him all to the promised land. When things were not good, he sent a young man called Joseph. And three days was a little longer for him. But that was in preparation for him to show up when they needed him. Took a little baby and put him in the River Nile. Because God did show up for our best interest. He called prophet after prophet. He sent a man called John the Baptizer. And he sent his son. Problem is, when we start looking out only for our own interest. When we try and do things for ourselves and just manipulate and make them work as we think they should be working. Oftentimes we end up living in the wrong stories. And I think I’m great. And when I’m not doing great, I’m kind of angry at God. Why? Because I’m living in the wrong story. I’ve told you this story before, but it’s a really good illustration of this. There’s a story of the couple who were married 60 years. They decided to downsize. And as they were going through the house, the husband discovers this little box. Way back in the cupboard. Opens the box. There’s two beautiful crochet dolls in the box. And then there’s also this envelope with $90,000 in it. And he’s kind of stunned. So he walks in. He says, look what I discovered. Do you know anything about this? He says, yeah. It’s all me. He says, tell the story. He says, well, when we got married, my grandmother called me. And she said, I want to give you some advice for your marriage. When you get into a fight, don’t fight. Go to your room. Go calm down and crochet a doll. And just put it away. Put all the anger away with the doll. And he looked at this box. And he thought, wow. In 60 years. He says, that’s good. But what about the $90,000? She said, well, after the second doll, I didn’t have any more room for the dolls I crocheted. So I took them to the craft store and sold them for $5. He was living in the wrong story. And sometimes we live in the wrong story. So I ask myself, what if I’m living in the wrong story? What if I’m living in the wrong story when I’m trying to take control and I’m not waiting for God to show up on that third day? What if I’m running after this world because the world says, this is what you should be doing. This is what you should be running after. You want it all. You want it now. And if you don’t get it now, then fine with you. I’m going to do my own thing. What if Jesus says, verse 25, if you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you follow me and you give up your life for my sake, you will save the world. Why? Why should I give up my life? Because in that moment that I surrender is when God shows up. God’s power is not seen by our control in our lives. God did not raise Jesus because Jesus shied away from the cross. God raised Jesus from the dead because Jesus was obedient and went to the cross. And on that third day, God showed up and Jesus walked. My question in the beginning was, who lives, who falls in my life? Can we just for a moment look at our own lives and ask the question in my life, have I surrendered? Who’s in control when I get angry? Who’s in control of my finances? Who’s in control of my relationships? Who’s in control of the emotions? Who’s in control when I feel this world is overwhelming? Who lives? When you’ve answered that and when I’ve answered that, because remember what I’ve always said, every sermon I write is written for this person. And then I come share it with you on my own life. So I ask these questions of myself. So here’s my challenge for me, for us this morning. Will you surrender? Will you take all of the things in your life, also the control, also the things that you’re afraid of, also the things that you’re not sure that you can let go, can you take those? And can we put them in the hands of our Father? The one who sent His Son into this world. The one who turned His back when His Son cried out, my God. And then the one who showed up on that third day and He opened that door. Can we place it in the hands of the Lord and surrender? There’s a song that we sing, I surrender all. I surrender all, all to Jesus. Will you take that? I’m going to give you a moment before I pray with you, just to think about what in my life is there that might, instead of helping me because I’m trying to control it, it’s hurting me. What is there in my life that this morning I can come and lay at the feet of Jesus and say, I surrender. You lead, I follow. I’m scared because it might lead to Jerusalem and there might be an angry mob and there might be the cross, but on the other side there’s an open grave. This is my Lord, I surrender. Take a moment and be quiet with the Lord and then I’ll pray with you. Lord Jesus, when you invite us, your promises are never empty. You’ve kept them all and you’ve fulfilled them all, more than we could ever think. And if you, if you come and you say, this is what I call you, surrender. Use your life, follow me. I have more than you could ever think. We trust you. And you heard our hearts this morning. As we just surrender, Lord, what needs to go to you. Thank you that you lead. Thank you that we may follow. Sorry that sometimes we stumble and we take our own road and kind of want to do the Peter thing for a moment. Thank you that you are gracious because that is who you are. Thank you for the blessing of this morning. Thank you for this blessing of this day. All these things we pray in the name of him who came in the name of the Lord, the one who can and did save us. Jesus, our Lord, our Saviour. Amen.

by Rev. Mark Gaskin https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/28111857/March-22-Sermon.mp3 Ezekiel 37:1-14 (MSG) Breath of Life 37 1-2 God grabbed me. God's Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun. 3 He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Master God, only you know that.” 4 He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones: ‘Dry bones, listen to the Message of God!'” 5-6 God, the Master, told the dry bones, “Watch this: I'm bringing the breath of life to you and you'll come to life. I'll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You'll come alive and you'll realize that I am God!” 7-8 I prophesied just as I'd been commanded. As I prophesied, there was a sound and, oh, rustling! The bones moved and came together, bone to bone. I kept watching. Sinews formed, then muscles on the bones, then skin stretched over them. But they had no breath in them. 9 He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man. Tell the breath, ‘God, the Master, says, Come from the four winds. Come, breath. Breathe on these slain bodies. Breathe life!'” 10 So I prophesied, just as he commanded me. The breath entered them and they came alive! They stood up on their feet, a huge army. 11 Then God said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Listen to what they're saying: ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, there's nothing left of us.' 12-14 “Therefore, prophesy. Tell them, ‘God, the Master, says: I'll dig up your graves and bring you out alive—O my people! Then I'll take you straight to the land of Israel. When I dig up graves and bring you out as my people, you'll realize that I am God. I'll breathe my life into you and you'll live. Then I'll lead you straight back to your land and you'll realize that I am God. I've said it and I'll do it. God's Decree.'” John 11: 38-44 (NIRV) Jesus Raises Lazarus From the Dead 38 Once more Jesus felt very sad. He came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone in front of the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad smell. Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days.” 40 Then Jesus said, “Didn't I tell you that if you believe, you will see God's glory?” 41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up. He said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. 42 I know that you always hear me. But I said this for the benefit of the people standing here. I said it so they will believe that you sent me.” 43 Then Jesus called in a loud voice. He said, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out. His hands and feet were wrapped with strips of linen. A cloth was around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the clothes he was buried in and let him go.”

by Rev. Mark Gaskin https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/18123208/March-15-Sermon.mp3 Ephesians 5:8-14 8 At one time you were in the dark. But now you are in the light because of what the Lord has done. Live like children of the light. 9 The light produces what is completely good, right and true. 10 Find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the acts of darkness. They don't produce anything good. Show what they are really like. 12 It is shameful even to talk about what people who don't obey do in secret. 13 But everything the light shines on can be seen. And everything that the light shines on becomes a light. 14 That is why it is said, “Wake up, sleeper.    Rise from the dead.    Then Christ will shine on you.” John 9 Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind 9 As Jesus went along, he saw a man who was blind. He had been blind since he was born. 2 Jesus' disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned? Was this man born blind because he sinned? Or did his parents sin?” 3 “It isn't because this man sinned,” said Jesus. “It isn't because his parents sinned. He was born blind so that God's power could be shown by what's going to happen. 4 While it is still day, we must do the works of the one who sent me. Night is coming. Then no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 After he said this, he spit on the ground. He made some mud with the spit. Then he put the mud on the man's eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him. “Wash in the Pool of Siloam.” Siloam means Sent. So the man went and washed. And he came home able to see. 8 His neighbors and people who had seen him earlier begging asked questions. “Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?” they asked. 9 Some claimed that he was. Others said, “No. He only looks like him.” But the man who had been blind kept saying, “I am the man.” 10 “Then how were your eyes opened?” they asked. 11 He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed. Then I could see.” 12 “Where is this man?” they asked him. “I don't know,” he said. The Pharisees Want to Know How the Blind Man Was Healed 13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 The day Jesus made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath day. 15 So the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied. “Then I washed. And now I can see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “Jesus has not come from God. He does not keep the Sabbath day.” But others asked, “How can a sinner do such signs?” So the Pharisees did not agree with one another. 17 Then they turned again to the blind man. “What do you have to say about him?” they asked. “It was your eyes he opened.” The man replied, “He is a prophet.” 18 They still did not believe that the man had been blind and now could see. So they sent for his parents. 19 “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?” 20 “We know he is our son,” the parents answered. “And we know he was born blind. 21 But we don't know how he can now see. And we don't know who opened his eyes. Ask him. He is an adult. He can speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. The leaders had already made this decision about Jesus. Anyone who said Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23 That was why the man's parents said, “He is an adult. Ask him.” 24 Again the Pharisees called the man who had been blind to come to them. “Give glory to God by telling the truth!” they said. “We know that the man who healed you is a sinner.” 25 He replied, “I don't know if he is a sinner or not. I do know one thing. I was blind, but now I can see!” 26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27 He answered, “I have already told you. But you didn't listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?” 28 Then they began to attack him with their words. “You are this fellow's disciple!” they said. “We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses. But we don't even know where this fellow comes from.” 30 The man answered, “That is really surprising! You don't know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does what he wants them to do. 32 Nobody has ever heard of anyone opening the eyes of a person born blind. 33 If this man had not come from God, he could do nothing.” 34 Then the Pharisees replied, “When you were born, you were already deep in sin. How dare you talk like that to us!” And they threw him out of the synagogue. People Who Can't See the Truth 35 Jesus heard that the Pharisees had thrown the man out of the synagogue. When Jesus found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me, so I can believe in him.” 37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him. In fact, he is the one speaking with you.” 38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “I have come into this world to judge it. I have come so that people who are blind will see. I have come so that people who can see will become blind.” 40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this. They asked, “What? Are we blind too?” 41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin. But since you claim you can see, you remain guilty.

by Jim Hetherington https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/11222437/March-8-Sermon.mp3 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

by Jim Hetherington https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/05105442/March-1-Sermon.mp3 Luke 23:32-43 32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”[a] And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. 35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God's Messiah, the Chosen One.” 36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” 38 There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews. 39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don't you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.[b]” 43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/25225644/February-22-Sermon.mp3 Mark 8:27-34 Peter Declares That Jesus Is the Messiah 27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” 28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” 30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. Jesus Predicts His Death 31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” The Way of the Cross 34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

Everyone is Welcome,No one is Perfect,And Everyone is Loved by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/20202821/March-16-Sermon.mp3 Romans 5:6-8 6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 2 Samuel 4:4 4 (Saul's son Jonathan had a son named Mephibosheth,[a] who was crippled as a child. He was five years old when the report came from Jezreel that Saul and Jonathan had been killed in battle. When the child's nurse heard the news, she picked him up and fled. But as she hurried away, she dropped him, and he became crippled.) 2 Samuel 9:1-9 David's Kindness to Mephibosheth 9 One day David asked, “Is anyone in Saul's family still alive—anyone to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan's sake?” 2 He summoned a man named Ziba, who had been one of Saul's servants. “Are you Ziba?” the king asked. “Yes sir, I am,” Ziba replied. 3 The king then asked him, “Is anyone still alive from Saul's family? If so, I want to show God's kindness to them.” Ziba replied, “Yes, one of Jonathan's sons is still alive. He is crippled in both feet.” 4 “Where is he?” the king asked. “In Lo-debar,” Ziba told him, “at the home of Makir son of Ammiel.” 5 So David sent for him and brought him from Makir's home. 6 His name was Mephibosheth[a]; he was Jonathan's son and Saul's grandson. When he came to David, he bowed low to the ground in deep respect. David said, “Greetings, Mephibosheth.” Mephibosheth replied, “I am your servant.” 7 “Don't be afraid!” David said. “I intend to show kindness to you because of my promise to your father, Jonathan. I will give you all the property that once belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will eat here with me at the king's table!” 8 Mephibosheth bowed respectfully and exclaimed, “Who is your servant, that you should show such kindness to a dead dog like me?” 2 Samuel 9:11 11 Ziba replied, “Yes, my lord the king; I am your servant, and I will do all that you have commanded.” And from that time on, Mephibosheth ate regularly at David's table,[c] like one of the king's own sons.

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/14103706/February-8-Sermon.mp3 Genesis 3:1-8 The Man and Woman Sin 3 The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” 2 “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. 3 “It's only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.'” 4 “You won't die!” the serpent replied to the woman. 5 “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” 6 The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. 7 At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. 8 When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man[a] and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. 9 Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/05134231/February-1-Sermon.mp3 John 6:25-29 Jesus the Bread of Life 25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” 26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” 28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” 29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/31114257/January-25.mp3 John 20:19-23 Jesus Appears to His Disciples 19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. 21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

by Jim Hetherington https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/21171939/January-18-Sermon.mp3

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/16123857/January-11-Sermon.mp3 Titus 2:11-14 11 For the [remarkable, undeserved] grace of God that [a]brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12 It teaches us to reject ungodliness and worldly (immoral) desires, and to live sensible, upright, and godly lives [lives with a purpose that reflect spiritual maturity] in this present age, 13 awaiting and confidently expecting the [fulfillment of our] blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, 14 who [willingly] gave Himself [to be crucified] on our behalf to redeem us and purchase our freedom from all wickedness, and to purify for Himself a chosen and very special people to be His own possession, who are enthusiastic for doing what is good.

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/07163154/January-5-Sermon.mp3 Hosea 14:1-5 14 [a]Return, Israel, to the Lord your God.    Your sins have been your downfall!2 Take words with you    and return to the Lord.Say to him:    “Forgive all our sinsand receive us graciously,    that we may offer the fruit of our lips.[b]3 Assyria cannot save us;    we will not mount warhorses.We will never again say ‘Our gods'    to what our own hands have made,    for in you the fatherless find compassion.” 4 “I will heal their waywardness    and love them freely,    for my anger has turned away from them.5 I will be like the dew to Israel;    he will blossom like a lily.Like a cedar of Lebanon    he will send down his roots;

by Aubrey Botha https://cpcchurchimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/07115010/December-28-Sermon.mp3 Luke 14:25-35 (NIV) The Cost of Being a Disciple 25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn't able to finish.' 31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won't he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. 34 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

by Jim Hetherington https://esi7x2zwb32.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/19144359/December-14-Sermon.mp3 Luke 2:8-20 8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,    and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” 16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

by Aubrey Botha https://esi7x2zwb32.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/10163154/December-7-Sermon.mp3 Luke 2:6-7 (NCV) 6 While they were in Bethlehem, the time came for Mary to have the baby, 7 and she gave birth to her first son. Because there were no rooms left in the inn, she wrapped the baby with pieces of cloth and laid him in a feeding trough.

by Aubrey Botha https://esi7x2zwb32.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/03115300/November-30-Sermon.mp3 Isaiah 8:22-9:2 22 Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness. 9 [a]Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan— 2 The people walking in darkness    have seen a great light;on those living in the land of deep darkness    a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:6-7 6 For to us a child is born,    to us a son is given,    and the government will be on his shoulders.And he will be called    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.7 Of the greatness of his government and peace    there will be no end.He will reign on David's throne    and over his kingdom,establishing and upholding it    with justice and righteousness    from that time on and forever.The zeal of the Lord Almighty    will accomplish this.

by Aubrey Botha https://esi7x2zwb32.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/26220545/November-23-Sermon.mp3 Revelation 3:14-22 To the Church in Laodicea 14 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. 19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. 21 To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

by Aubrey Botha https://esi7x2zwb32.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20110635/November-16-Sermon.mp3 Revelations 3:7-13 To the Church in Philadelphia 7 “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 9 I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars—I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. 10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth. 11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. 12 The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name. 13 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

by Aubrey Botha https://esi7x2zwb32.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20111232/November-9-Sermon.mp3 Revelation 2:18-29 To the Church in Thyatira 18 “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. 19 I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first. 20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22 So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. 23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. 24 Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, 25 except to hold on to what you have until I come.' 26 To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations— 27 that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery'[b]—just as I have received authority from my Father. 28 I will also give that one the morning star. 29 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Sermon

September 21 Sermon

September 14

Sermon - Luke 4:1-8, John 21:6

Sermon - John 2:1-11