Toronto Alliance Church

We're going through a series in the letter of 1 John. It's a short letter, but it's a wonderful thing to walk through this series and familiarize ourselves with this book and what God has to say to us. All things in Scripture are old but speak fresh to us in our very lives right now. We're in the middle of chapter 2. It's a bit of an interruption in the argument in the letter....

How do you know that you know God? Some people think it's arrogant to even say that you could know God. But the scriptures teach that we can know him. Though Jesus said that there are people who, when they stand before him, even though they say, "we we did many mighty miracles in your name and we drove demons in your name," he'll look at them and say, "I never knew you at al...

Pastor Bill talks about how we can walk in the light. Preacher: Bill Dyck Extra Reading: Genesis 3:1-24

I want to talk about navigating the season of life, change and transition. I don't think we like change, though sometimes it's thrust upon us, like in times of sickness, job loss, or students graduating to the next phase. But God is in it. He is in change. I began thinking about transition when certain members of the church were facing big transition. Members of the congregation retiring a...

The movie Ford vs Ferrari is about a 24h grueling Le Mans car race that happens in Europe. At the time the movie takes place, Ferrari was the only car used because they were unbeatable. Ford was known for their family cars, but Mr Ford wanted to find his way into racing. Ford had their struggles. But the year came where they won. All three Ford cars made it to the finish, 1st, 2nd and 3rd. And whe...

A girl was given two loonies by her dad. He told her she could do anything she wanted with one, but the other was definitely to be given to God on Sunday at church. The girl nodded in agreement. She asked if she could go to the candy store with visions of all that she could buy with her dollar. She happily skipped toward the store holding tightly the two loonies. As she was skipping along, she tri...

I was raised in a home that modeled generosity. My mother had no income but developed a massive garden to be generous. My father was known for his generosity to neighbors and he gave faithfully financially to the Church, whether or not the farm made money. My father forgave a $50,000 debt I owed him to cover a down payment on a house. I was able to work off $5-7k of it, but we were raising 4 kids...

Pentecost Sunday message. Extra reading: Joel 2:28-32a Preacher: Bill Dyck

We are people who have received much from God. We've been forgiven of our sins. He gives us his Spirit. He gives us a new nature. He says, the old nature is gone and there's a new, divine nature that is given to us. He gives to us a holy calling to enter into his purposes, into works that we've been prepared in advance to do. For that, each one is given spiritual gifts, enabling us fro...

When I entered ministry, I didn't realize how dependent I was on God. I didn't realize how little I could affect any kind of change in anything. I didn't see how little love I had in my heart. I was detail oriented, able to manage many things, and had lots of capacity. But I didn't see how utterly ineffective I was at practically everything spiritually. The Scriptures talk about ho...

We spend a lot of energy, time and money becoming equipped for some skill. This is really important to do. We're glad that people have equipped themselves when we take our car to a mechanic or when we go to the hospital. We're glad that the doctor and nurses have equipped themselves. Anytime we get on the streetcar or the subway, we're glad the drivers know what they're doing. Ther...

We feel pretty ordinary. We feel too tired, we can't manage life as we'd like, especially in some of the secret places. We can't get all the strings tied up in our lives the way that we wish we could, we hate pain. But in the middle of it all, there is an extraordinary dimension because God invades our lives and it catches us by surprise. He graciously invades our lives and brings mean...

What do you do with the message of Easter the rest of the year, after the chocolate Easter eggs are gone? It's easy to blow past Easter and remain unchanged, easy to pack Easter into a box like we do Christmas decorations and wait till next April while our life settles into a routine. But Jesus means something very different from that. Imagine with if the Toronto Maple Leafs were to enter into...

There are times in our lives where it seems we ride on top of the waves, everything is going as it should. There are other times it's not so clear. Our feelings get hurt, we suffer disappointments, we get depressed. But the story that we want to look at here today, about the resurrection of Jesus, speaks to all who feel despondent and like life doesn't always pan out the way it should. May...

What was probably Winston Churchill's shortest speech went like this: "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never in nothing, great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never give in." And with that, he sat down. William Carey, the pioneer missionary to the modern missionary movement in the 17th century, said of his bio...

The songs we use during our service are chosen from the Christian Copyright License Incorporated database. As I was choosing the songs for today, I came across a song called "If I could win the lottery". That is quite real to us. We see how if we could come into a lot of money fast how many of our troubles would be solved. We are walking through the book of James and today's passage...

This morning I want to unpack a passage as we're walking through the book of James that I think is a passage for city dwellers. I grew up on the farm where our closest neighbor was a kilometre away but I've lived here in the city for many years. In the city, people make a lot of plans, they don't sit still, their calendars are full, they know where they want to go. There's clearly...

This week is our annual meeting and it gets me thinking about how God planted this church. He builds the church and keeps it going and he does it for a definite purpose. The question for us is how do we fulfill His purposes for us? And how do we thrive for a long time where God has put us? Much fruit has been born out of our church and God has done many things, but it's not just a past that we...

What's amazing the story of Joseph and his brothers is, there's the plans of man and then there's the plans of God. Joseph ends up ruling all of Egypt under Pharaoh, and his brothers end up coming to him and bowing down before him, the one that they sold. But Joseph is full of forgiveness for them because he's got a heavenly perspective. He says,"do not be distressed or angry...

There are a few words that were written on a tombstone in England. This is how it reads: "Beneath this stone, a lump of clay, lies Annabella Young who on the 24th of May began to hold her tongue." Presumably May 24 is the day that she died. The tombstone reflects something of the struggle that we face in controlling our words, using our words for good purposes. Someone once asked, "...

We don't like things that are false. We don't like spam emails or calls. We don't like people trying to sell us things that are not the real thing. We don't like getting duped and we learn to be guarded because it seems like all those things are on the rise. I was thinking that that may be how many people in our world think and feel about the Church and about Christians in general....

Preacher: Andrew Hubbard Extra reading: Deuteronomy 16:18-20

Preacher: Bill Dyck Extra reading: Isaiah 55:6-13

I know a woman who got really sick and thought it was an issue with her stomach. It got so bad she had to go to the hospital. It turned out to be nothing serious and dissipated shortly after going to the hospital, but not before the doctors had taken all kinds of images. They found that everything was dissipating, but they said, "we see a couple spots on your lungs that you really should get...

We find ourselves sometimes in waiting rooms. What's interesting about the waiting room is that nobody is in a waiting room any longer than they have to be. Toronto General Hospital has a very nice waiting room, nice coaches, nice reading material. But nobody is in that waiting room one minute longer than they have to be. Nobody comes in from the streets and just sits there and reads the good...