Teachings from Unionville Alliance

Find out how a man after God’s own heart reacts when faced with his own guilt and shame. Repentance, forgiveness and renewal. Learn how to go to God with your guilt and receive forgiveness and joy in your salvation.

The Bible is eminently a book of hope. It holds out the promise of a better tomorrow when life is challenging. The Psalms have plenty of heartbreak prayers that invite the reader to look ahead with hopefulness. That’s what is so confusing about Psalm 88. It leaves the reader cold and seemingly without hope. So how does this dark song find its way into the Bible and what help could it possibly be?...

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Psalm 3 is written by King David at a very critical juncture of his life. He has been reigning as the King over Israel and bringing them into a time of prosperity. Everything seems to be going well until his son Absalom rebels against him to take over the kingdom. David flees from Jerusalem and pens this inspirational psalm about having confidence in God in such a bleak situation. Many of David’s...

What do you do when you are doing the right and good things and people who don’t have any regard for that are winning? What do you do when God seems to unfairly bless the people who don’t honour or follow him? That is the dilemma the Psalmist faces. His journey will help give us clarity when we face these seeming inequities.

Emotions are important. God wants us to express our whole heart to him in prayer. We are given excellent models of this in the Psalms in the very heart of the Bible. In this introductory message we will discover how to enter into the sometimes daunting world of the Psalms. We will unlock a key to beginning this journey of faith.

Many times we live like the Pharisees in a religious box confined by what we think and how we should act. In this message we will compare and contrast the reaction of Jesus and the reaction of the Pharisees to various situations which will allow us to examine our lives and see how we react: like Jesus or like the Pharisees.

Most of us have ideas about what it takes to be acceptable to God. Jesus once again shocks us as he corrects some faulty thinking.

Most of us abhor the hypocrisy that we see in others. The problem can be that we are blind to hypocrisy in ourselves. The Pharisees were meticulous in keeping their own rules but Jesus called them out for the inconsistencies in their lives. They talked a good talk but their lives fell far short of what they claimed for themselves. As we examine the hypocrisy of the Pharisees we may see ourselves i...

The culture of today teaches us to push ourselves forward, get noticed, fight for our rights and to speak well of ourselves. However, the principle of the Kingdom of God is to humble ourselves and the Lord will exalt us in due time. This attitude is starkly different from the way of the world. As we study the Pharisees, we will learn how they preach but do not practice, do their deeds to be seen o...

As Christians we faithfully celebrate Christmas and Easter, but what about Pentecost? Many of us don’t know what it is, let alone why it deserves a prominent place in the worship of the church. In this message we will discover what this special event is and what it means to us.

We all need to live by priorities—putting most important things first. The Pharisees certainly had values and priorities they lived by. Sadly they often got their priorities mixed up. If we are ever going be all God want we will need to learn that we can’t major on the minor.

When looking at the Pharisees and their effort to find acceptance with God we confronted with the truth about what it takes to be in a right relationship with God. Some of the people who seem the most religious may alarmingly not make it with God. The Pharisees demonstrate the wrong way to God.

We all engage in different rituals in our lives. Rituals help to provide meaning for us. God has established sacred rituals to nurture us in our spiritual lives. This week we will examine baptism. Why would a Christian ritual involve someone getting dunked under water in front of a crowd? We will seek to uncover the significance of this special act required by Jesus’ followers.

We all engage in different rituals in our lives. Rituals help to provide meaning for us. God has established sacred rituals to nurture us in our spiritual lives. This week we focus on communion. We will discover the significance of communion and how it can be faithfully be practiced.

We can all blow it sometime. We can let God down and disappoint ourselves. Sometimes our failures can be so devastating that we wonder if there is a way back for us, whether there is a place to serve any more. The Apostle Peter dealt with those feelings and it was going one on one with the resurrected Jesus that helped him sort out his future. Peter’s experience can help us to be restored after a...

Prayer was an essential part of Jesus' life. However, for all the accounts we have of Jesus praying we have very few of his actual prayers in Scripture. In our final message of this series we are granted an inside look at Jesus in his longest recorded prayer in the Bible. It will not only give us insight into Jesus, but is instructive for our own praying.

The thought of Jesus leaving the disciples was devastating. How could they carry on without their Lord and leaders? Jesus shocks them when he asserts that it is good for them that he goes away. Jesus has something in mind that will make all the difference even if he is not physically present with them.

Being a follower of Christ comes with the most incredible benefits. However, the Christian faith should come with a warning: Followers may experience opposition and persecution; join at your own risk. Jesus wanted his disciples to know that they would be subject to the possibility of hostility because they were connected with him. That hasn’t changed in 2000 years. Discover what Jesus has to say a...

As Jesus is preparing the disciples for his departure, he realizes that this is troubling to them and he desires to comfort their hearts. He does so by reminding them of their belief in God, encouraging them to believe in him, letting them know he is preparing a place for them, assuring them that he will return for them, and promising them that they will be with him for all eternity. Similarly, we...

Love—that grand topic has been the source of inspiration from time immemorial. In Jesus’ farewell speech, he focuses in on that topic as critical to the disciples’ work and the health of the church. He presents it as a new commandment that is really not new. In this message we want to probe the meaning and significance of this call to love for us today.

There is an exodus of young adults leaving the church. There was a tragic abdication of faith in Israel’s history not long after the great events of the exodus and conquering Canaan. In this message we want to learn some lessons to help us avoid the departure from the faith by younger people.

Most of us desire to have some status, recognition, significance and acknowledgement of our worthiness. Our means of achieving this can result in self-centredness, self-promotion and arrogance. Jesus turns this on its head, calling us to follow him on a surprisingly and vastly different path.

In the first chapter of Ruth we see calamity come to the life of Naomi which discourages her. In Ruth chapter two, light springs up as we see the favour of God to Ruth and Naomi through Boaz. He goes out of his way to care for and provide for Ruth. This is a beautiful picture of how the Lord in His lovingkindness shows us favour, provides our needs, and comforts us with His promises. Through the e...

As we begin this series on the book of Ruth, we will examine the hardships and calamities that filled Naomi’s life as she traveled from Bethlehem to Moab. In the midst of failure, we see glimpses of God’s favour and signs of hope. This gives us hope, that even when things are not going our way, our sovereign and gracious God is working behind the scenes on our behalf to fulfill His plan in our liv...