This is the challenge for the believer this side of eternity: we cannot trust our perception of God’s closeness to be accurate. God is near whether we feel Him to be or not.
Good morning, Calvary! We’re blessed to have you join us in worship today.
Our series looking at Jesus’s teachings on how to pray continues today. Looking in detail at the Lord’s Prayer, the sermon today concerns how we come to prayer with a right attitude. Our approach should be reverent, with humility and awe, and our address should be confident, with love and affection.
May God bless our worship and strengthen us in prayer.
You can watch our service livestream at 11 AM on our Facebook page. The message is brought to us by Pastor John Bodner, an intinerant minister attached to Calvary.
Third Song: As the Deer
Closing thought
“Most men forget God all day, and ask him to remember them at night.”
You can watch our service livestream at 11 AM on our Facebook page. The video will be uploaded to YouTube later in the day and also posted here. The message is brought to us by Pastor John Bodner, an intinerant minister attached to Calvary.
Second Song: Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus
Closing thought
“Jesus would not have invited the weary and heavy laden to come to Him, if He was not able and determined to give them rest.”
Good morning, Calvary! We are so delighted to be able to worship in person today, and to continue to worship together online as well!
We began a series on prayer last week, looking at how Jesus addresses prayer. Last week, we discussed how prayer must be solely for the benefit of our relationship with God, without hypocrisy.
This week, we discuss the need for prayer to be simple, based on faith in Christ and trust in His ability to provide all we need and more.
May we grow in the depth and maturity of our prayers, and so in our Christian lives.
We’re glad and thankful that we get to worship with you.
This week, we begin a series on prayer. Along with the Word of God (the Bible), prayer is one of the indispensable elements of a Christian’s relationship with God. God speaks to us through His Word, and we speak to Him through prayer. We’ll be considering five occasions on which Jesus addressed prayer in the Gospels, looking firstly at the Sermon on the Mount.
In this first message, we’ll look at the instruction to direct prayers solely to God.
These past few weeks, we’ve considered the Song of the Servant, written by the prophet Isaiah of the forthcoming Messiah. In the song, Isaiah details the need for salvation, and the suffering the Messiah will endure in order to secure it. We know from scripture that the Messiah written of is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Today we climb the heights of human hope: the triumphant vindication of Christ our Saviour declared on Earth and decreed in Heaven.
Praise be to God for His inexpressible gift of mercy that holds us safe in any season!
You can watch our service livestream Sundays at 11 AM on our Facebook page.
Closing thought
Occasionally, weep deeply over the life that you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Feel the pain. Then wash your face, trust God, and embrace the life that He’s given you.
The Song of the Servant has been our theme these last few weeks, and we return to it today, looking at its fourth stanza. There are three surprising qualities that characterise the death of the Redeemer, and as Pastor Bodner writes, they “brand our Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God, the Christ of God, and the Son of God.”
As we consider the reality of the cross today, may God give us ears, minds, and hearts ready to soak in its life-giving truth.
You can watch our service livestream at 11 AM on our Facebook page. The video will be uploaded to YouTube later in the day and also posted here. The message is brought to us by Pastor John Bodner, an intinerant minister attached to Calvary.
Closing thought
“The soul that has learned the blessed secret of seeing God’s hand in all that concerns it, cannot be a prey to fear, it looks beyond all second causes, straight into the heart and will of God, and rests content, because He rules.”
Welcome to this morning’s service! We’re glad to have you.
This week brings us to the three verses central to the Song of the Servant, which we have been looking at over the past few weeks. We have seen a Servant who is fundamentally surprising, a “homespun prophet,” as Pastor Bodner puts it, capable of great claims backed by astonishing power and yet wholly unqualified for greatness by human standards. The three verses in focus today will bring us to the meaning of this paradox, revealing the very heart of Christ’s work and its significance to sinful human beings.
You can watch our service livestream on Sundays at 11 AM on our Facebook page.
Closing thought
“The soul that has learned the blessed secret of seeing God’s hand in all that concerns it, cannot be a prey to fear, it looks beyond all second causes, straight into the heart and will of God, and rests content, because He rules.”
Good morning, church! It’s a blessing to open God’s Word with you today.
We’re in the book of Isaiah looking at “The Song of the Servant” (chapters 52-53). We considered last week the revelation of the Messiah in the prologue to the Song, and we turn this week to the humiliation of the Messiah.
In three verses, the deity of the Servant, the “Arm of the Lord” sent to save God’s people from their sins, is revealed — and then swiftly rejected by those He has come to save. Whatever He may claim to be, He doesn’t look the part: “He isn’t born a winner, He doesn’t look a winner, He doesn’t act like a winner, at all. His life and ministry cut across everything most people expect and value. They are put off, and put out. They fall off, and fall out. To them, He amounts to nothing, and they account Him nothing.” The Servant knew it must be this way, and still He came. Still He served. Still He saves.
No worship can ever be enough, and nevertheless we gather with joy to worship Jesus Christ the Servant King. May God bless our time together.
We begin a look at the last of Isaiah’s “Songs of the Servant,” in which God reveals to Isaiah a prophecy of the coming Messiah and Servant-King, Jesus Christ. Revelation will be the theme of today’s sermon as we examine Jehovah (God)’s revelation to Isaiah about Jesus Christ and Isaiah’s meditations on human reactions to this revelation. The prophecy reveals, as Pastor Bodner writes, that “[t]he Saviour’s climax of glory comes at a cost of greatest grief to Him, but with the consequence of greatest grace to us.”
Down from His glory, Ever living story, My God and Savior came, And Jesus was His name. Born in a manger, To His own a stranger, A Man of sorrows, tears and agony.
Chorus: O how I love Him! How I adore Him! My breath, my sunshine, my all in all! The great Creator became my Savior, And all God’s fullness dwelleth in Him.
What condescension, Bringing us redemption; That in the dead of night, Not one faint hope in sight, God, gracious, tender, Laid aside His splendor, Stooping to woo, to win, to save my soul.
Without reluctance, Flesh and blood His substance He took the form of man, Revealed the hidden plan. O glorious myst’ry, Sacrifice of Calv’ry, And now I know Thou art the great “I AM.”