Tune in to listen to Pastor Josh preach from John 18 this morning:

“Jesus offers up his life in obedience to his Father, not as a pathetic martyr suffering a cruel fate but in full knowledge of what was to befall him to achieve his purpose and will…There are those today who would strip the cross of its significance, unwilling to acknowledge God as Holy in his judgment they deny that he punished the sin of believers upon his Son. When your imagination of God is only love — only nice and never terrible — in order to continue in this charade, you must remove the centrality of the cross to Jesus’ mission and think of his execution as something evil men forced upon him…”

(Sermon originally preached on October 6, 2019)

Pastor Josh concludes the teaching from the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus in John 17 this morning:

“The basis for Christian unity and love is the perfect love exhibited in the unity of the Divine Trinity…So unified in purpose and plan are the Father and the Son that they can be said to be in one another, but they are still distinct in their unity…The unity Jesus is speaking of is more than close-knit community.  It is so much more than a group of like-minded individuals who enjoy some of the same music and preaching styles on Sundays…”

(Originally preached on September 29, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh continues to teach from Jesus High Priestly Prayer recorded in John 17:

“Jesus’ joy, the joy that he prays his disciples will receive in full, results from abiding in the Father’s love by asking the Father for things in line with Jesus’ purposes and will…We will know we are abiding in the Father’s love when we grow in faithful obedience according to his promise, and knowing his love our joy will be full.”

(Originally preached on September 22, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh continues to teach from Jesus’ prayer in John 17:

“We are working our way through chapter 17 of John’s gospel, what has traditionally been called ‘The High-Priestly Prayer,’ and just in introduction to the prayer, we saw that like the High Priests of ancient Israel, Jesus is here praying this prayer of consecration over the sacrifice to be offered to God. Which, in this case, is the sacrifice of his own life on the cross for his friends; those he loves…“

(Originally preached on September 15, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh preaches from John 17, Jesus High Priestly prayer. In response to Jesus’ request to the Father to glorify the Son, Josh says:

“‘To glorify can mean ‘to praise’ or ‘to honor’, and those are certainly ways in which we can join in glorifying our God and that is God’s purpose…but when Jesus asks the Father to glorify him, he is not asking the Father to praise or worship him, but to let the reality that the world has been blinded to be made known…God is glorious. We cannot add to that majesty through worship. His ego cannot be boosted by our devotion. It is for our ultimate good, as creatures fashioned for worship, to know the glory of the one who is most worthy of that worship. The only satisfying object of our regard.“

(Originally preached on September 8, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh continues to teach from the words of Jesus farewell discourse in John 16. Unfortunately the audio for the first few minutes of the sermon were lost in the archives. The transcript of the introduction is as follows:

“One of the things I love about preaching verse by verse through the Scriptures, is that this is now our fourth week learning about the work of the Holy Spirit, and we have not had to concoct a sermon series or gather a creative team to plan out what we should be learning. Rather we are tracing the words of Jesus, and he is teaching us all truth through the Word and Spirit of God. Our passage this week signals the end of the teaching sections in John.  The final words are not only the conclusion to this passage, but to the entire section: ‘I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.’

We see in this text Jesus’ love for his disciples in the way he patiently instructs them and comforts them for the sorrow about to overtake them. A temporary sorrow that will shortly break and make way for their full joy. It is my prayer this morning that you will experience this full joy as you come to understand and believe the words of Jesus as his disciples… “

(Originally preached on September 1, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh continues to teach from Christ’s farewell discourse in John 16, discussing the ‘Helper’ that Jesus will send:

“The Holy Spirit’s whole mission is not to point to himself, not to take center stage, but to point to Jesus. How do we know if we are a church that is led by the Holy Spirit? If we are glorifying Jesus, honour his name, giving him praise, proclaiming his gospel faithfully…”

(Originally preached on August 25, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh continues to teach us from Jesus farewell discourse in John 15 and into chapter 16:

“We are at the place in John’s Gospel, where Jesus, leading up to the hour of his own choosing for his death burial and glorification, has transitioned from public teaching to privately instructing his own chosen disciples. He has given them some very strong assurances; that he has chosen them, that they were given to him by the Father and that he will not lose any of them.“

(Originally preached on August 18, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh teaches from Jesus’ farewell discourse in John 15 this morning:

“If we look at these verses completely out of their context, ignoring everything Jesus has said up to this point, there is a possibility of reading this passage in such a way that completely fails to recognize the good news of what Jesus is teaching…Just like branches with their vine, it is when we abide in Christ’s love that we receive a life-giving flow, when we will begin to produce the fruit of obedience.. This is so central to what it means when our church endeavors to be gospel-centered'.  It is to abide in Christ’s love — revelling, celebrating in the good news of the gospel daily, together and alone.”

(Originally preached on August 11, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh teaches from Christ’s farewell discourse in John 14:

“Jesus isn’t being a whiney passive-aggressive, saying; ‘If you really loved me, you would do what I say.’  The obedience in question is a direct result of truly loving Christ.  If you love Christ, the implication is, the result is, you will begin to keep his commandments.  You will grow in fervour and frequency in obedience; ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments.’”

(Originally preached on July 14, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh teaches from Jesus’ farewell discourse in John 14 this morning:

“The most calming thing the people of God can remember is that they can trust the words of God, the things he has promised. Jesus adds to this, ‘Trust God, also trust me.’  As we have seen in evidence many times so far in John, Jesus not only speaks only the words of his Father and performs the actions of his Father, but he himself speaks and acts as very God himself.  Any messenger might point people to trust God’s words; Jesus calls us to trust in him as God.”

(Originally preached on July 7, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh preaches from John 13:31-38 this morning, Jesus foretelling of Peter’s denial:

“Jesus knew what was in the heart of Peter, just as he knew what was in the heart of Judas, but where Judas hated the light, Peter has not yet been empowered by the knowledge of the resurrection and its implications, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Peter will follow later, both in his death as a martyr for Christ and joining him in glory some three decades later…”

(Originally preached on June 30, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh teaches from John 13, Judas’ betrayal, this morning:

“Notice that Jesus here, a couple of times, makes sure that his disciples know that the calling of Judas was not an oversight or a sign of weakness on his part so that, rather than to question his knowledge and control, they (his disciples) would know that even this betrayal went according to the plan and purpose of God. Judas was chosen, but not for salvation.  He was chosen by Jesus in order to fulfill the Scripture, (Psalm 41:9), attributed to King David.  It is a mournful lament about the painful experience of being mocked by enemies and betrayed by friends when already suffering a debilitating and life-threatening illness: ‘Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.’”

(Originally preached June 23, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh preaches from John 13 this morning, the account of our humble King washing the feet of his followers:

“Foot washing was a degrading task normally reserved for the lowliest of servants.  Some Jewish writers insisted that even Jewish slaves should not be required to wash the feet of others. There is no instance in either Jewish or Greco-Roman sources of a superior washing the feet of someone of lower status; it just wasn’t done. Jesus here shatters the status quo and the disciple’s sense of the fitness of things, reversing customary roles. He adopts the dress of a menial slave, dress that was looked down upon by everyone in that culture; and he engages in this astonishing self-humbling act. Not only was this an incredible display of Christ’s love for his own, but it is only a shadow of the act to come where Jesus would humble himself ‘by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.’  The matchless self-emptying love of the Son, the eternal Word, reaches its climax on the cross.”

(Originally preached on June 16, 2019)

Pastor Josh teaches from the remainder of John 12:

“…The problem is, in our humanistic thinking, we are surprised that God is not trying to save everyone when we should be surprised that he saves anyone at all.  We should be astounded by this amazing grace that He extends to his enemies…”

(Originally preached on June 9, 2019)

Pastor Josh teaches from John 12 this morning:

“In our text this morning we see a definitive shift in John’s Gospel; the hour is now here.  Jesus will no longer be protected from the darkest designs of their persecution and it is all signaled now by the appearance of some Gentiles (non-Jewish people), from some part of the Greek-speaking world, who seek an audience with Jesus…”

(Originally preached on June 2, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh teaches from John 12 this morning, Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem, so beginning the passion narrative:

“…Jesus refused to reinforce their political and nationalist aspirations by riding on a war horse or by stirring up insurrection against the Romans.  Instead he mounts a donkey…Rome is insignificant.  Jesus could blot out Rome with the snap of his fingers.  Rome would be less than a smear if Jesus had come for that purpose….Jesus was on a higher mission; a truly improbable plan.  He would at the same time defeat the power of evil and rescue some of his evil enemies; making them part of himself, his own family….Jesus was on route to defeat for all time the very power of death, a true victory beyond comprehension.  He will rescue for himself people from all nations…The Jewish nationalists were thinking far too small.  By mounting the colt of a donkey, Jesus made a far more impressive claim than if he entered Jerusalem on a chariot with ten legions behind him…”

(Originally preached on May 26, 2019)

Tune in as Pastor Josh teaches us from John 11 and 12 this morning:

“In the last scene, at Lazarus’ interrupted funeral, Mary and her entourage had been a source of consternation for Jesus when rather than trusting God despite the circumstance, she gives herself over to hopeless grief, wailing and throwing herself at his feet in despair…We see a new Mary here in our text this morning.  She has now seen God’s glory; “the glory as of the only Son from the Father,” as predicted in v.1:14…Not only did she receive her dead brother back from the grave but Jesus revealed something of himself to this family and many of their friends…What is essential here is to see that Jesus is not only the object of their faith, but its source; he stewards their faith.”

(Originally preached on May 19, 2019)