Bruce Martin May 17, 2026
About This Message
What if the most important news you’ve ever heard never loses its relevance — not with the passing of a season, a year, or a century? In this Sunday’s message, Pastor Bruce Adema pulled a surprising passage out of the Christmas story and asked us to sit with it in May, because the good news the angels announced over Bethlehem wasn’t just for shepherds in the cold dark of a Judean night. It was for all people, in all times, in all places — including Regina, Saskatchewan, in the spring of 2026. The invitation in this sermon is both simple and searching: what would it look like to actually live as bearers of that good news?
Background and Context
The sermon opens in Luke 2, with the angel’s announcement to the shepherds: “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.” But Pastor Bruce was quick to trace this moment back much further — all the way to Genesis 12, when God promised Abraham that through his descendants, blessing would come to all the nations of the earth. Christmas is not just a sentimental winter story; it is the fulfillment of a thread that runs through the entire Old Testament. Jesus, the Messiah, is the answer to every longing and promise woven across centuries of Scripture.
Alongside Luke 2, the message drew from Mark 1, where Jesus begins his public ministry with a declaration that carries the same energy as the angel’s words: “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come. Repent and believe the good news.” And at the heart of it all was Jesus’ own summary of what it means to follow him, drawn from Matthew 22 — love God with everything you have, and love your neighbour as yourself. These two commands, Jesus said, are the hinge on which all of the law and the prophets turn.
What We Explored
Pastor Bruce made an observation early in the sermon that reframed everything: early followers of Jesus didn’t call themselves Christians — that label was assigned to them by Romans who noticed how often they talked about Christ. They called themselves followers of the Way. Faith in Jesus wasn’t just a theological position to hold; it was a path to walk, moment by moment, day by day. The challenge that raises for all of us is real: it’s not simply a matter of praying a prayer and returning to life as usual. It’s a question of how we would live if Jesus were walking around Regina today.
One of the most moving moments in the sermon came from a story about Casa de la Amistad in Bolivia, a ministry supported by missionaries Tim and Callie Hutton. The ministry works with children whose parents are incarcerated — kids caught in cycles of poverty and instability through no fault of their own. A young man who had been one of those children recently returned to a Bolivian prison, not as a prisoner, but as a lawyer — representing inmates who had no one else in their corner. He credited his faith and the love of the Bolivian Baptist community for changing the entire trajectory of his life. As Pastor Bruce put it simply: “That’s the power of the good news of Jesus for all people.”
The sermon also pulled 1 Corinthians 13 out of its usual wedding-day context and put it back where Paul originally intended it — as instruction for a church community figuring out how to get along. Sandwiched between chapters about spiritual gifts and worship, the famous “love chapter” is really about the body of Christ and what it takes to hold together. Pastor Bruce offered a quietly convicting exercise: try replacing “love” in those familiar verses with your own name. [Your name] is patient. [Your name] is kind. [Your name] keeps no record of wrongs. It lands differently when it’s personal.
Perhaps the most striking illustration came from Lebanon, where the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary — the only institution in the entire Middle East and North Africa region open to students of any background — has been housing over 400 displaced refugees regardless of their faith tradition. During a previous conflict, Lebanese Christians chose to care for Syrian refugees even though Syria had invaded Lebanon just a generation before, bringing violence and destruction. Remarkably, an estimated 200,000 of those refugees eventually came to faith in Jesus — not because of an argument or a program, but because the church decided to love its neighbour. In the middle of that same region today, staff and students are still doing the same thing, while bombs fall close enough to shake Zoom calls.
Key Takeaways
- Good news doesn’t have an expiration date.
The angel’s announcement in Luke 2 wasn’t a seasonal message to be stored with the Christmas decorations. The arrival of Jesus as Saviour, Messiah, and Lord is as relevant in May as it is in December — and as relevant in our neighbourhoods as it was in Bethlehem.
- Following Jesus is a way of life, not just a belief to hold.
Early believers called themselves followers of the Way because faith in Jesus had practical, daily implications for how they lived. Knowing Jesus as Saviour and following him as Lord are two sides of the same coin.
- Love is the church’s most credible witness.
Jesus said that the world would recognize his disciples by their love for one another. When churches in Bolivia and Lebanon chose to love their neighbours — practically, sacrificially, unconditionally — the good news spread in ways that words alone never could.
- The two great commandments are enough to start with.
Before we add layers of complexity to what it means to be the church, Jesus asks us to begin here: love God with everything, and love your neighbour as yourself. Getting those two things right changes everything.
A Question Worth Sitting With
“If someone in your neighbourhood, school, or workplace were asked to describe you or your church in one word, how likely is it that the word they’d choose would be *love* — and what might need to change for that to be true?”
This Week’s Challenge
Take a few minutes this week to work through the 1 Corinthians 13 exercise Pastor Bruce described: read the middle section of that chapter and replace the word “love” with your own name. Let it be an honest moment of prayer and self-examination. Then choose one specific person in your life — a neighbour, a coworker, a family member — and do one small, concrete act of love for them this week, with no agenda attached.
This post was prepared as a ministry resource for Westhill Park Baptist Church. An initial draft was generated with the assistance of Claude AI (claude.ai), developed by Anthropic. All AI-assisted content is reviewed, edited, and approved by church leadership before publication to ensure it faithfully reflects the message and values of our community.
Westhill Park Baptist Church · westhillchurch.ca · 8025 Sherwood Drive, Regina, SK
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