Selected Quotes:

"The number one objection to faith isn’t evidence; it’s experience. It’s suffering. And our suffering casts a long shadow over our faith.”

"Jesus has a habit of showing up in the places of defeat.”

“The cross - a symbol of death and defeat - became a symbol of the greatest victory.”

Series Preview:

Most people today find it easy to be skeptical. How could we not be? We all know what it’s like to be let down. We’ve all experienced the pain of disappointment when things didn’t work out quite the way we thought. So, we tend to take everything we hear with a grain of salt. We hedge our bets so that we can keep from having our hopes destroyed. We tell ourselves that a little bit of skepticism can be a good thing. We don’t want to be naive. We don’t want others to take advantage of our gullibility. We don’t want to let our guard down only to get hurt again.

And yet, the problem arises when we take this same attitude of skepticism and apply it to faith. We can read the promises in the Bible with a mindset of skepticism that keeps them from feeling real. We can come into the church with an attitude of skepticism that keeps us from true community. It’s hard to trust God when you’re always expecting to be let down. It’s hard to get to know others more deeply when you always have your guard up. Either our skepticism and our faith will learn how to be compatible, or they can eventually become combustible.

As we approach the Easter season, we’re going to spend a few weeks looking at the Bible’s ultimate skeptic — the disciple known as “Doubting Thomas.” In the weeks leading up to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, Thomas showed himself to be quite the skeptic. He had some trouble wrapping his mind around what God was up to. Looking at his doubts and disbeliefs can give us a window into our own skepticism. How do we balance faith and doubt? How can we let go of our skepticism and hold tight to our Savior? Perhaps we can see the answers to those questions a little differently once we see them through the eyes of the original skeptic.

Selected Quotes:

"Hope is the most powerful force in the world."

"When you plant hope, there’s always a harvest. People want hope. They need hope. They are drawn to hope. When we see hope, we want it for ourselves."

"Hope is meant to be shared."

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Series Info:

We live in a world where hope is hard to come by. In fact, we’ve all had our dreams crushed and our hopes shattered so many times that it’s often hard for us to hope. We talk about “false hopes” and say things like, “I don’t want to get my hopes up” to help us deal with the fact that hope rarely seems to pan out.

But, what is hope? Why is hope so important? More importantly, how can we share hope with a world that often seems so hopeless? In our four-week sermon series “Hope Wins,” we’ll dive deeply into the biblical concept of hope and the difference it makes in our lives today. As it turns out, hope isn’t an idea. Hope isn’t wishful thinking. Hope is a person. Hope is Jesus. Once we see the hope He has to offer, our concept of hope will never be the same.

How does hope transform our daily life? The New Testament shows us how hope produces overwhelming, infectious joy in the followers of Jesus.

This excerpt can be found in "We are Hope" from our "Hope Wins" series. This sermon was preached at RVCC on 3/4/2018.

|SELECTED QUOTES|

"Hope is not a sedative; it is a shot of adrenaline, a blood transfusion. Like an anchor our hope in Christ stabilizes us in the storms of life, but unlike an anchor, our hope moves us forward, it does not hold us back.” - Warren Wiersbe

“Hope drives us to one another.”

“The essence of Christian hope is that you cannot have your best life now.”

“When I feel like i don’t have anything, hope reminds me that I have an inheritance. When I feel like I don’t have anyone, hope reminds me that I have a God who loves me. When I feel like I don’t have anywhere to go, hope reminds me that I have a home."

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We live in a world where hope is hard to come by. In fact, we’ve all had our dreams crushed and our hopes shattered so many times that it’s often hard for us to hope. We talk about “false hopes” and say things like, “I don’t want to get my hopes up” to help us deal with the fact that hope rarely seems to pan out.

But, what is hope? Why is hope so important? More importantly, how can we share hope with a world that often seems so hopeless? In our four-week sermon series “Hope Wins,” we’ll dive deeply into the biblical concept of hope and the difference it makes in our lives today. As it turns out, hope isn’t an idea. Hope isn’t wishful thinking. Hope is a person. Hope is Jesus. Once we see the hope He has to offer, our concept of hope will never be the same.

Why should we trust in God?

Speaking from Romans 8:18-25, Brandon Braun explains why God is worthy of all of our hopes.

This excerpt can be found in "Hope in God Alone" from our "Hope Wins" series. This sermon was preached at RVCC on 2/25/2018.

| SELECTED QUOTES |

"Only when our ladder falls do we realize that we’ve been resting it on something insecure. Only then do we recognize that maybe we placed our hope in the wrong place. We’ve been leaning on the wrong wall.”

"The brokenness of this world reminds us that we were made for better.”

"We have victory. We have honor. We are loved. We are chosen. Nothing in this world can promise us anything like that."

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| SERIES INTRODUCTION |

Hebrews 6:19: “…Hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls…"

We live in a world where hope is hard to come by. In fact, we’ve all had our dreams crushed and our hopes shattered so many times that it’s often hard for us to hope. We talk about “false hopes” and say things like, “I don’t want to get my hopes up” to help us deal with the fact that hope rarely seems to pan out.

But, what is hope? Why is hope so important? More importantly, how can we share hope with a world that often seems so hopeless? In our four-week sermon series “Hope Wins,” we’ll dive deeply into the biblical concept of hope and the difference it makes in our lives today. As it turns out, hope isn’t an idea. Hope isn’t wishful thinking. Hope is a person. Hope is Jesus. Once we see the hope He has to offer, our concept of hope will never be the same.

What reason does the Bible give us for having hope? Senior Minister Brandon Braun shows us that the Bible emphatically points us to what Jesus accomplished for us at the cross and in His resurrection.

This excerpt can be found in "The Power of Hope" from our "Hope Wins" series. This sermon was preached at RVCC on 2/18/2018.

| SELECTED QUOTES |

“We were captives and he paid the price. We were helpless and hopeless, but He made us free.”

“In Christ, our sin isn’t terminal. Our mistakes don’t define us. Instead, our lives are defined by life.”

“Hope is not a concept. Hope is not an idea. Hope is a person. Hope is Jesus Christ."

| SERIES INFO |

We live in a world where hope is hard to come by. In fact, we’ve all had our dreams crushed and our hopes shattered so many times that it’s often hard for us to hope. We talk about “false hopes” and say things like, “I don’t want to get my hopes up” to help us deal with the fact that hope rarely seems to pan out.

But, what is hope? Why is hope so important? More importantly, how can we share hope with a world that often seems so hopeless? In our four-week sermon series “Hope Wins,” we’ll dive deeply into the biblical concept of hope and the difference it makes in our lives today. As it turns out, hope isn’t an idea. Hope isn’t wishful thinking. Hope is a person. Hope is Jesus. Once we see the hope He has to offer, our concept of hope will never be the same.

After a great six weeks in Ecclesiastes, we're excited to turn our attention toward Easter and the empty tomb for the next four weeks. Listen to Brandon share some of what you can expect from "Hope Wins."

Does God care about EVERY day of our lives or just the important days?

Does God care about EVERYTHING we do or just the things we do when people are looking?

Listen to Brandon talk about how the wisdom of Solomon applies to these questions. This excerpt is taken from the 2/11/2018 message "Purpose & The Meaning of Life." You can find the full message in our podcast feed.