Toronto Alliance Church

One of the things that I love about our church is how so many people are involved in the work. So many. And when that happens, the sense of community grows, and it's a healthy community because each one's involved. A second thing happens: our work becomes very effective because all those gifts, all those personalities, all those very different individuals, uniquely equipped by God, are wor...

Larry Crabb was a Christian counselor whose career was to lead the way into Christian counseling. The question for him was always, "What do you do with an aching soul?" One day at 2 a.m., he had an insight. He woke up his wife, saying: "The deepest longings for significance and security in my clients are needs that God actually intended to meet through the community of believers, th...

I want to talk about rest. The city knows nothing of rest. And we sometimes get drawn into that, we get sucked right into the drivenness, the competition. God, no matter where we are, means to lead us into rest. In the beginning, He created for six days, and then the seventh He took rest. Which is amazing because God never gets tired. We've got to rethink what rest is. Rest is not just for whe...

In my school growing up, we did a sport called orienteering. We were given a compass and a map, and we were thrown into a forest that we'd never been in, with certain markers that we had to navigate. It was a race to find all the markers through a heavy wooded area where the paths were not clear. I did well at it. I learned to trust my compass. Navigating a forest is one thing. Far more challe...

Throughout the Old Testament, we see portraits of God's redemptive work. And as we look at Exodus 12, we see a portrait of redemption. I have titled the message this morning "An Old Testament Portrait of Redemption." When we speak about redemption, we are speaking about buying something back that was lost. The word redeem means to buy back. And in the biblical context, the word redee...

People get themselves into trouble, and are in need of freedom from something that holds them. And God is the One sets captives free. When God calls people to Himself and they want to follow, often there's another master that is controls their life and drags them down. That master must be dealt with before they can follow God freely. This week I met a middle-aged woman who up until two years a...

Before my wife and I got married, we got to know each other. She was quick to say what she did not like, my beard, my music. And I knew that at the center of her life was a passion to follow Jesus, and to bring the gospel to at-risk people. I knew her then. But after 43 years, I know her a lot better. All those things are true. But now I see the depths of them. I called today's message "W...

Our family used to vacation in Algonquin. We would grab three canoes to carry all of us, and go back, usually a lake or two, and get away from things for two weeks. There's one big lake that we really like to camp on, and it was notorious for wind. Sometimes we would have to navigate from top to bottom of that lake, and the going is brutal. The waves are almost entering into the canoe. And you...

Our youngest grandchild is a toddler, just barely able to walk, and that child is like an accident waiting to happen. Every moment that child needs rescuing. You're at a campground. There's fire, there's water, there are sharp drop-offs, and that child is happily and eagerly walking into danger constantly. So you are rescuing that child. It's the nature of humanity to find ourselve...

We are going through a sermon series on the power and strength of God's blessing for us, as we work through the first chapters of Exodus. In today's sermon, we will look at Exodus 2, where God's name only shows up at the very end. We will look at the incredible power of God's blessing in a situation where it seems he has none and where he seems almost absent. Extra reading: Romans...

There are many things in this world that are considered strong. Steel is strong. The double earthquakes that came to Venezuela just recently - very strong. Train locomotives have such strength to pull things. Yesterday at a memorial, I saw the strength of love between a husband and wife over decades that only grows. I want to talk today about the strength of the blessing of God. The circumstances...

People come to our doors in the hundreds each week, and we help them in different ways. But less than 100 metres away there are many in back lanes or propped over in some difficult corner, and they don't come. They're too out of it, or completely lack hope. The addiction is not the worst part. It's that they have no hope. So I've been going out. I ask God to lead me, and I have the...

Paul talks about a beautiful vision the Lord gave him of heaven. He talks about how the revelations from this vision were so great that, in order to prevent him from becoming proud, a thorn was given to him in the flesh. The meaning of the Greek word for "thorn" is "stake." Paul felt like this was something being driven through him. It caused him great suffering, and not for a...

Have you ever been tricked? I have, because I believe people. And I'm very compassionate. People come to our door, and I believe them. If you have any kind of electronic device, you know about scammers. Some, you think, "Well, that's just ridiculous," but with others, you really have to look and study. It's getting more and more tricky to figure out what's true and what&#...

Every person, even identical twins, has different fingerprints. When the police come upon a crime scene, they are looking for these little invisible impressions. If they find them, they can say, "That is who was here." Wherever God works, he leaves impressions behind, so we can know that it is God who is at work and not someone else, because other impressions are very different. The Bibl...

In the downtown, there has been a huge increase in wealth over 20 years, and a growing separation between those who have wealth and the poor. You would think people would be doing better, but that is not what the studies show. What has also increased is credit card debt and household debt. So even though people have more money coming in, their indebtedness has increased more. What has almost disap...

We are a very style-conscious generation, and especially a style-conscious city. I grew up in the rural areas of Ontario. That was not the case. When I moved to the city, I became quite aware that wearing clothes becomes the fine art of making a statement. As I look at the passage I want to speak from, there is a style that accompanies the follower of Jesus. I do not mean clothing. I mean there is...

If you were to look up the word "comfort" on your phone and see what kinds of images come up, all kinds of things appear: chocolate cake, cups of coffee, some beautiful getaway, maybe a really soft bed. Some pets show up too. Difficult times come to all of us, so we look for comfort, and the question is always where to find it and how to access it. Much as we would like chocolate cake or...

The Alliance began in Toronto 140 years ago and then thrived there from about 1885 to 1915. Towards 1920, though, the Alliance downtown was imploding, all along University Avenue and Parkdale, where there had been powerful ministries. The Alliance moved north and east and west and to the rest of the world, and left the downtown vacant, until our church came as a church plant under First Alliance,...

You are made for more. That is a big theme in the Bible. Everybody is made for more. There are a lot of reminders in life that show we are made for more than anything that we experience. There is no desire that we have here on Earth that, if we were to pursue it, in the end would not still leave us longing for more. Those who have the most in life are not the most satisfied. Sometimes it is those...

How can I be changed? We each have behaviours that are very difficult for us shed, and other qualities we'd like to gain. We might begin the year with resolve, saying, this is the year I am finally going to become a gentle person. Or something else. But one year goes on after another, and we wonder, are we truly changeable? Or even worse, what if we are trying to change a loved one? We know fr...

In the most recent space mission, four astronauts went and circled the Earth and the moon and came home. These men had spent their lives preparing for this in a lot of different ways. But all of their studying, all of their pictures, everything they had seen did not adequately prepare them for the moment when they saw the moon eclipse the sun. One of them, who claimed afterwards to not be a partic...

At a complicated crime scene, investigators look for fingerprints. They want to find who did this. Fingerprints are unique to each individual, and they do not change through our life. They are highly reliable evidence. They place people in specific locations, sometimes linking multiple crimes. What are God's fingerprints? You cannot see him, but we understand he is working in the details of ou...

Imagine you hired somewhere. There is nothing glamorous about it, but it is solid. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, you get another offer from a place that is more prestigious. It comes with better pay, career prospects, and commute. Everything and everyone around you is saying that you should jump ship and make the switch. What you do not realize is that if you do make that switch, it is going to...

There are times in our lives where we ride on the top of the wave and all is going just as it should. Those are nice, sweet times. But there are other times where we suffer disappointments and things are not as we wish they were. And it's hard sometimes reconciling those times with where we would really like to be, or even our faith, what we know we should be. So there's so many questions...