ARCC Sermons

Are you the gift, or are you the recipient of the gift? There is grace when God allows us to get to the end of ourselves such that we would gladly trade any inane glory for real, powerful grace. In this grace we have the ability to reclaim the joy that comes from the hand of God.

Wisdom is a good thing, even a great thing. But when Solomon turns to consider wisdom in his pursuit for ultimate meaning, it fails the test just like indulgence did before. But a thousand years later, we learn through the magi that to truly be wise men, we must begin by fearing God and end our pursuit in Christ.

In an age where Christmas comes with the greatest of expectations, we can find ourselves thrust into a situation where it has to be the best or bust. Solomon, in all of his wisdom, is going to come along and free us from the bonds of an idealized Christmas. God has good for you to experience this season and there is no need for the ultimate Christmas.

Nothing could bring about change in your life more than prayer and obedience to God. In this text we will explore how the life and ministry of Christ should effect our view of these common elements in the Christian life. We need them to be more than mere duty.

Under the Old Covenant, a High Priest mediated between God and Israel for the nation’s sins. In the New Covenant, Jesus Christ, our High Priest, has now provided direct access to God the Father by His Spirit through His death and resurrection. In this text, we will examine the severity of sin, the inadequacy of the Old Covenant, and if God really has a specific role for each of us on His mission.

The writer of Hebrews introduces Jesus as the “great high priest”. He is in fact THE mediator between God and man. Our Christianity needs a healthy robust view of a resurrected, living, reigning Jesus who is interceding for us right now in this very moment. Do you have a “right now” view of Jesus Christ to go along with the past and future?

There can be no real rest here in this life without the promise and assurance of ultimate rest in the next. In order to have rest here we are to “strive” for the rest to come when we will finally be in the presence of God in the fulness of joy.

Belief leads to rest. If this is so, then we can understand why the writer is so adamant about defending the “promises” of God. If God has failed on His promises then we really don’t have anything to cling to in belief. In this text we begin to understand that the promise of God was and is much bigger in scope than just the generation of Moses and much better than a piece of land.

At the root of all sin is belief in a lie. In this text we further dive into the reality that unbelief is the ultimate barrier to our rest. How do we diagnose our unbelief and what truth needs to be exchanged in return?

As the writer of Hebrews begins this discourse on rest we are going to look at two specific things that keep us from entering this rest. When we harden our hearts we always have this tendency to revert back to trying to work in order to obtain rest rather than working because we have rest.