Canterbury Baptist Sermons

In this first part of the sermon series “Being a Christian Community,” we explore the call to be devoted to each other. We hear the words of Colossians which calls us to put off behaviours that harm the unity of the body, and to put on qualities that build us up. In this sermon, we explore this call of God.

To contact Rev. Stephen Field, email cbc@canterburybaptist.org

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When the Bible speaks of faith, it mainly speaks of trust God in hard times and being faithful in our relationship to God. However, there are some Bible verses that link faith to miracles. What kind of faith does it take to activate miracles from God? In this sermon, we explore this topic.

To contact Rev. Stephen Field, email cbc@canterburybaptist.org

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We can not control the era of history we are born into. We can not determine whether our time will be prosperous or challenging. Throughout history, people of faith have had to face invasion, captivity, drought, and depravation; while other people of faith have enjoyed times of prosperity, power, and comfort. The call of faith is to live in every season of life with our eyes on God, faithful to play our part in His greater work of ...

Is doubt the opposite of faith? In Scripture, people are both challenged and commended for their doubt. The key question is, “What direction is your doubt taking you in?” Today we explore the topic of the purpose and meaning of doubt. We see that unbelief, not doubt, is the opposite of faith. And we examine how faith and doubt are actually family members—you have to have faith to have something to doubt! 

To contact Rev. Stephen Fie...

“Come to Jesus and life will be easy and free of trouble!” Well, that’s what we might want to believe, but the truth is that faith in Jesus is not an escape from troubles. In fact, a common answer to prayer is for Jesus to assure us that He is with us in our troubles. Today, we explore some Bible verses that describe the fact the troubles in life will test our faith, and consider the reasons why this happens and the foundation of o...

Stories of faith in the Bible are often simplified to a narrative of a person experiencing surprising things and believing for crazy things in the face of great opposition. But this is not how faith is most commonly shown in the pages of the Bible. So what does faith look like?  Today we explore Hebrews 11 and those people listed as great examples of faith for us. We consider the kind of faith they showed and how we can live that f...

What does faith look like when put into action? Depending on what Church tradition you were raised in will shape how you see the interaction between faith and works. For some of us, faith means waiting and not working for our relief. For others, our actions are all that count and can be separated from faith. In our reading today, James puts faith and works together, challenging us not just to ask what we believe but how what we bel...

Today we start a new series on the topic of Faith. To begin, we ask a simple but profound question: “What is Faith?” Faith is often defined by what it is not: not rational, not logical, not reasonable! But is this true? Does Biblical faith call us away from wisdom, knowledge, and understanding? And is it possible to live without faith? Some people claim they are purely rational beings without any faith, but is this even possible? A...

Today we celebrate Cathy’s Induction as our Pastor: Worship, Care, and Connection. After the induction, Cathy preaches a sermon based on the theme of Peter walking on the water. Cathy structures some personal reflections on her experiences of discerning the call to come to Canterbury Baptist around the theme of Peter walking the water. Peter’s heart was moved to go to Jesus as Jesus was walking across the Sea. It was Peter’s idea t...

The Golden Rule is so simple and so clear, how can you even preach a sermon on it? “Do to others what you would have them do to you.” This sermon almost lasted only 2 minutes with the exhortation to go out and do exactly that! But, the Golden Rule is hard for us to live out not because it’s hard to understand, but because it calls from us a radical level of self-reflection and honestly about how we truly like to be treated. In this...

We commonly experience prayer as a passive exercise, sitting quietly with our eyes closed and head bowed. But Jesus teaches that prayer is active. He uses the images of “asking,” “seeking,” and “knocking” to describe the kinds of prayers He is inviting us to pray. And He does this with the assurance that we pray to a good Father, a God who knows how to give good gifts to His children. In today’s sermon we consider how we can ask, s...

One of the most unexpected qualities of Jesus’ ministry was that He wanted to keep it a secret! Our answer to every challenges is to talk, talk, talk. But Jesus would just move on to the next place, heal the next person, minister to those who reached out to him, all without fanfare. One of the pressures we put on ourselves is to take the precious work of God in our lives and thrown it around so people can miss use and mock it. We c...

“Don’t judge” is a comment thrown around widely. People looking to defend themselves from critique or criticism turn these words into an accusation and so become the judges of those they are accusing of judging! But is this really how Jesus meant His words to be applied? Today we look at Jesus well known words not to judge each other, we examine it not as a command but as a warning, and we learn how this relates to having a log com...

How we imagine our story ends will effort how we live. If we imagine that all our worldly efforts will ultimately be fruitless as God destroys all things, then we will see our efforts as largely futile. But if we see that God is working by His Spirit to restore creation, and we are invited to play our part, then our lives and our work take on a whole new meaning. Today we consider how Scripture gives us the vision of God restoring ...

Jesus calls us all to follow Him. But where does Jesus lead us? The answer is, “Into connection: connection with God and connection with our neighbours.” When the disciples followed Jesus they found themselves going into homes the rich and the poor, the powerful and the overlooked, the religious and the sinner. Jesus’ ministry centred on connecting with people where they were at. And this is how Jesus leads us today. When we follow...

God has called us to participate with Him in His work of mending. The world is broken in so many ways: broken people, broken relationships, broken systems, broken communities. And, we also are broken in our own way. But the very parts of us that are the most broken are exactly the parts that God is wanting to mend in us, so we can then go and mend others. In this sermon we reflect on this great “mending” calling from God.

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Jesus is alive! This is the great miracle we celebrate on Easter Sunday. Jesus is Alive! And the world will never be the same again. In today’s sermon, we reflect on what it means that we live in a world where Jesus has been raised into a new and eternal life. We celebrate how this has turned our world around: instead of living in a world where death (in all its forms) has the last word in our lives, we now live in a world where Je...

We start a new series about Jesus: who He is and why He is the Saviour of the world. But, to begin, we start back in eternity with the topic: Jesus is God our Creator. We consider what it means that God is a Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — and so God is eternally in relationship. And we wonder at the God who created the world and created us all as an act of love and from a desire to increase the circle of his eternal lovin...

How do we pray when our life falls apart? We all have seasons where our life becomes a ruin: our hopes and dreams crumble, our health gives way, relationships fall apart. Our life that was once so orderly and felt so secure has now become disheveled, uncertain, ruinous. Where is God in this season of life? Psalm 74 takes us into this experience and points us to where God connects with us in these dark and confusing experiences of l...