The Story | Why Was The World Made? | Chapter 22 (Andrew Allison)
St. Paul's Leaskdale Weekly Sermons
Release Date: 03/03/2025
Advent 2025: Go | Joseph & Mary Go To The Temple (Andrew Allison)
St. Paul's Leaskdale Weekly Sermons
Luke 2:22-40 - This week, we continue our Advent series, Go, by reflecting on the quiet faithfulness of Joseph and Mary as they bring Jesus to the temple. In this moment of ordinary obedience, God meets them with extraordinary hope through Simeon and Anna.
info_outline
Advent 2025: Go | Joseph Goes With The Plan to Marry (Andrew Allison)
St. Paul's Leaskdale Weekly Sermons
Matthew 1:18-25 - This week’s story is God’s call to Joseph. Joseph would have hoped to lead an ordinary life, work a job, have a family, and contribute in some small way to the community. God had bigger plans.
info_outline
Advent 2025: Go | Mary Goes To Elizabeth (Lynnita Weber)
St. Paul's Leaskdale Weekly Sermons
Luke 1:39-45: Unexpectedly pregnant before she was married, Mary’s life was in upheaval. God sent her to Elizabeth, who would encourage her with a blessing.
info_outline
Advent 2025: Go | Gabriel Goes To Mary (Andrew Allison)
St. Paul's Leaskdale Weekly Sermons
Luke 1:26-38 - It's Christmas, and everyone is GOING! For starters, it's Gabriel who goes first to Zechariah (last week) and now to Mary in Nazareth. Christmas has God on the move, and God chose to include humans as key players in the best story ever. Mary’s involvement in this story will prove very costly. Such is the Christian life.
info_outline
Advent 2025: Go | John Goes Before Jesus (Andrew Allison)
St. Paul's Leaskdale Weekly Sermons
Luke 1:5-17 - The first Christmas was hopping! God was fulfilling promises made centuries earlier and now he needed the right people to be in place and ready to go. His first stop was Jerusalem to talk to an old priest about he and his wife having a baby. There was excitement in the air! And so it begins.
info_outline
Practicing The Way | True Family (Andrew Allison)
St. Paul's Leaskdale Weekly Sermons
Mark 3:32-35 - The most important practice of all is Community, because, in part, we can learn every other practice as we walk with other Jesus people. In this week’s passage, Jesus clarifies the kind of community we need to be surrounded by: those who do the will of God.
info_outline
Practicing The Way | How Fruit Grows (Lynnita Weber)
St. Paul's Leaskdale Weekly Sermons
John 15:5-17 - Jesus describes himself as the vine whose source and power produce fruit in the branches. When we remain in Jesus the way a branch does in a vine, he grows the fruit of true life in us. A Rule of Life is a set of practices that help us remain in Jesus. These practices include prayer, solitude, Scripture, sabbath, community, fasting, service, witness, and generosity.
info_outline
Practicing The Way | Disordered Love (Andrew Allison)
St. Paul's Leaskdale Weekly Sermons
Mark 2:17 - Jesus came to call sinners. Sinners, those who miss the mark, are on God’s invite list! Jesus also adds that he didn’t come to call the righteous, so everyone who believes, or at least wants others to believe, that they’ve got it all together, need not apply. There’s a fundamental self-awareness required to follow Jesus.
info_outline
Practicing The Way | Move Nearer When You Hurt (Andrew Allison)
St. Paul's Leaskdale Weekly Sermons
Matthew 26:36-39 - A number of the Christian practices that Jesus gave us (like solitude, Sabbath, prayer and Scripture reading) turn down the noise of the world so we can turn up the volume of His voice. Other voices surface as well! Buried emotions and wounding memories can also rise to the surface. This is one of God’s ways of telling us it's time to enter those harder bits of our lives with him and learn how to name them, express them and regulate them as followers of Jesus.
info_outline
Practicing The Way | God's Rhythm (Andrew Allison)
St. Paul's Leaskdale Weekly Sermons
Mark 1:35 - One of the many remarkable things about Jesus’ life is his restraint and rhythm. Knowing he had only three years in ministry might have made him frantic and sleepless, but it wasn’t the case. Thankfully, he gave us practices so that our own lives can also be marked by restraint and rhythm.
info_outlineThe story of the Bible is the Story of Jesus, God’s plan all along was to come as one of us to rescue us from sin and death and to reset us to live radically different lives. Today’s passage offers a different (still true!) beginning to the story of Jesus' life on earth.