Bart Byl Sermons

Bart Byl on Matthew 21:1-11. On Palm Sunday, Jesus requisitions a couple of donkeys — and a handful of Old Testament prophecies — to reveal himself as Israel's true king. But he's not the violent man of blood the people want. He's the King of Peace, who comes to suffer with and for his people. And days later, he will be leaving the city, crowned with thorns, to be enthroned on the cross....

Bart Byl on Colossians 3:5-17 . Series: The Fruit of the Spirit An artist doesn't impose their will on their material. They listen to it, entering into a conversation with it, figuring out what it wants to do. That's what gentleness is. We're called to that same responsiveness and openness towards others, respecting their integrity as those who share in God's image, being sensitive to what the Hol...

Bart Byl on Hebrews 10:19-39 . Series: The Fruit of the Spirit When we see others abandon Christ, it should fill us with a holy fear. The sin I am indulging could be the beginning of the road to apostasy. Our Master calls us to lifelong personal allegiance. We can't summon up perseverance from within ourselves, though. Our faithfulness must be grounded the One who promises, "I will never leave you...

Bart Byl on Psalm 15 . Series: The Fruit of the Spirit Goodness is no bland, shapeless quality. A good man or woman is a person with a core of iron, who stands for what is right and true in the midst of evil. Why? Because they live under God's holy eye and are longing to be in his holy presence. This is the kind of person God wants to live with on his holy mountain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/...

Bart Byl on Ephesians 4:17-32 . Series: The Fruit of the Spirit Kindness is being sensitive to the needs of others and meeting those needs. It’s the very opposite of our old life before meeting Jesus. Now we learn to be others-focussed. That means telling the truth, working hard to help others, speaking words that build people up, and forgiving others when they sin against us. We express kindness...

Bart Byl on Psalm 58 . In Psalm 58 David gives us words to express our outrage at unjust, violent strongmen to our God who is righteous and true. As we pray we renounce violence and leave it to the Lord to take vengeance, remembering that the cross is the supreme demonstration of divine justice—the only justice that brings healing, forgiveness, and restoration. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priva...

Bart Byl on James 5:7-11 . Series: The Fruit of the Spirit Waiting is one of the hardest things to do—but what if it's where God does most of his work in his life? That's why we need to develop patience, the capacity to endure a long period of difficulty without losing heart. We must learn to trust that God is good and wise, and that he himself is marvellously patient with us. Hosted on Acast. See...

Bart Byl on James 3:13-18 . Series: The Fruit of the Spirit Peace: wholeness, flourishing, life in harmony with God, ourselves, and the world around us. What does it mean to live in peace in the midst of a violent world? James points to bitter envy and selfish ambition as the root problem, all because "you do not ask God". When we are secure in God's care, we no longer need to fight with others fo...

Bart Byl on Psalm 98 . Series: The Fruit of the Spirit We shout for joy before the Lord because of his great goodness — not because of our emotional state, personality type, or immediate circumstances. As we call to mind God's mighty acts of salvation, his unchanging faithfulness, and coming kingdom, we summon all humanity and even the non-human creation to a jubilant song of praise to our Re...

Bart Byl on 1 John 4:7-21 . Series: The Fruit of the Spirit The fruit of the Spirit is love. The primary and most basic evidence that we are abiding in Christ is that we love each fervently, from the heart. But we lack the inner resources to do this. John reminds us that we love because love comes from God — God is love. He demonstrated his love for us supremely at the cross. When we replenish our...

Bart Byl on Galatians 3:13-26. Series: The Fruit of the Spirit We begin a new series on the Fruit of the Spirit with the encouragement that God is committed to changing us — so much so that he has given the double gift of Son and Spirit. Your transformation isn’t your response to the gospel: it is part of the good news of what God has committed to do for you. Of course, we aren’t passive: we’...

Bart Byl on Matthew 2:1-12 . One day a caravan of mysterious strangers emerge from the desert and begin asking around in Jerusalem for the one who was born king of the Jews, “for we have seen his star when it rose.” These Persian or Babylonian astrologers are the first Gentiles who come to worship Jesus, and their courage and determination to seek Jesus should provoke our own quest to bow down bef...

Bart Byl on Isaiah 25:6-9, 26:1-4, 17-19 . Series: The Nicene Creed Almost eight centuries before Christ, the prophet Isaiah prophecies a victory banquet for all nations, celebrating God’s victory over death. There the guests exclaim, “This is our God! We trusted in him, and he saved us.” With the clearer light of Christ, we now confess with the Nicene Creed, "We look for the resurrection of the d...

Bart Byl on Acts 2:32-41 . Series: The Nicene Creed “We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins,” the Nicene Creed reads. Forgiveness meets us, as God’s free gift, at the very beginning of the Christian life. As we struggle against sin and wrestle with the powers of darkness, we can look back at our baptism as God’s sign and seal of his unwavering promise towards us in Christ. Hosted o...

Bart Byl on Ephesians 2:11-22 . Series: The Nicene Creed There’s nothing harder in the creed to confess than, “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” Humanly speaking, nothing seems more feeble, compromised, distracted, divided, sinful, corrupt, or even abusive than the church. But our faith is in the Triune God, who creates, redeems, sustains, and perfects his church. It is he who...

Bart Byl on 1 Corinthians 2 . Series: The Nicene Creed “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.” Truth itself is inert and lifeless until the Holy Spirit moves upon us. He is the Gift and Giver, sent by the Father through the Son to help us understand a...

Bart Byl on Psalm 9 . Series: The Nicene Creed We live in a world that cries out for justice. Moral seriousness requires retribution for evil. Christ is the judge whom God has appointed to set right what has gone wrong — to name and destroy evil, and to usher in a kingdom of justice, peace, and joy.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bart Byl on Psalm 110 . Series: The Nicene Creed Jesus is not only risen from the dead. He has been glorified and exalted to the place of supreme power and authority. In the words of the Nicene Creed, “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” Christ is the king, armed with authority to save us to the uttermost. He exercises supreme, total, and cosmic jurisdiction. Wh...

Bart Byl on Psalm 68 . Series: The Nicene Creed When God fights and conquers evil, the lowly sing songs of joy. When we confess, with the Nicene Creed, that “On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father,” we are chanting the saga of the Son of God who went forth to slay the three-headed monster of Sin, Satan...

Bart Byl on John 19 . Series: The Nicene Creed This is, along with the accounts in Matthew, Mark and Luke, one of the darkest and most disturbing chapters of the Bible. The murder of God’s only Son reveals the evil of humanity in its full horror. Yet the cross is also the greatest revelation of the love of God, because through Christ’s atonement God liberates humanity from sin, Satan and death. So...

Bart Byl on 1 John 1:1-4 . Series: The Nicene Creed After Jesus rose from the dead, trembling hands reached out and confirmed: this is indeed the Master ... not an apparition, a ghost, a hologram: this is our Friend, in flesh and blood, sitting beside us eating a piece of fish. The Son of God is truly a human being like us. So we confess with the Nicene Creed: “For us human beings and for our salv...

Bart Byl on Luke 8:-22-25 . Series: The Nicene Creed When Jesus calms the storm, the disciples ask themselves in fear and amazement, “Who is this person?” The second article of the Nicene Creed is the considered answer of the church almost three hundred years later:  “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, t...

Bart Byl on Psalm 104 . Series: The Nicene Creed God didn’t created the universe out of necessity, but out of the sheer joyful abundance of the divine life. Why else would he have made 1.5 million species of beetles? Our existence is completely gratuitous: the gift of being comes from the generous hand of our creator. God’s heart toward the world has been gracious from the beginning. Hosted on Aca...

Bart Byl on Hebrews 10:19-25 . At the heart of the Gospel are Christ’s finished sacrifice on the cross for our sins and his ongoing, eternal priesthood at God’s right hand. Since both these glorious things are true, the author to the Hebrews exhorts us, we should draw near to God, hold firmly to our hope, and stir each other up to love and good deeds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mor...

Bart Byl on Psalm 8 . Psalm 8 celebrates the significance of humanity in a vast universe. Since all human beings are created in the image of God, we have been graced with dignity, meaning and purpose. But now we are a race of fallen kings, alienated from our Maker and thus from ourselves. But Christ has come as the True Human, to fulfill humanity’s destiny and share it with us all. Hosted on Acast...