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Sermon Series
- Christmas Is Life 4
- Come and See 1
- Ephesians: Together in Christ 10
- Fight for Joy! 8
- Fighting Fear with FEAR 6
- Forever Now 7
- From the Garden to the Cross 3
- Heartbeat 5
- Hebrews: Jesus is Better 14
- Jesus' Heartbeat 3
- Joy Full 20
- Legacies Are Unavoidable 1
- Let's Be Honest 1
- Living for Jesus as the Nation Heaves 2
- Mission Conference 1
- Praying For... 5
- Press Pause 4
- Rethinking Suffering 6
- Share a Meal With Me 2
- Speak! 3
- Stories of a Kingdom 10
- Strange Encounters 3
- The Doctor's Cure 17
- The Final Countdown 27
- The Last Words of Jesus 8
- The Story of (Your) Life 12
- The Story of Jonah and God's Relentless Love 8
- Transitions 6
- Truth Be Told 5
- Upside Down Christmas 3
- Visions of Hope 6
- Visions of a King 4
- Welcome Home 5
- What If? 2
- Which Kind of Parenting is Best? 5
- Worth the Wait 3
Topic
- Anxiety & Fear 3
- Blessing 1
- Christian Growth 20
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- Eternity 8
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- Mission & Discipleship 10
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- Sin 9
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- The Character of God 14
- The Church 21
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- March 2020 2
A Gracious Warning
Kyle Kauffman
One of the things that we notice as we read Hebrews is that it is not only full of descriptions of how Jesus is Better, but it is also interspersed with serious warnings about turning away from Jesus. While these warnings are contained throughout the book, perhaps nowhere is the warning and what’s at stake clearer then in Hebrews 5:11-6:12. The purpose and effect of this warning can often get lost in the midst of the debate between whether someone can lose their salvation or not. The warning was originally addressed to those who called themselves Christians. This warning makes it clear that apostasy (turning away from and denying the faith) is a real possibility and reality. While the Bible teaches that those who are truly saved will not lose their salvation because God will hold onto them and enable them to persevere, warnings like this also teach that there are some who will appear to be truly saved to us who will turn away and deny the faith. In God’s hands, serious warnings are a means of His grace that are meant to help us persevere in our faith and not turn away from what is Better – Jesus and all he promises to us.
Hebrews 5:11-6:12
A Better Priest
Kyle Kauffman
In Hebrews 4:14-5:10 we see Jesus described as a Perfect Priest. While the original readers of Hebrews would have understood their need for a priest, the idea of a priest likely seems foreign to us today. And yet we still look to people to play the role of a priest in our lives. We look to others who will listen to us, understand us, advocate for us, and help to solve our problems. In our day perhaps the people we most often look to as our priests are counselors and therapists. We go to counselors to have them listen to us, offer help to us, and help provide solutions to the problems in our lives. But what we need is not just a counselor or therapist, we need a Priest. Hebrews 4:14-5:10 tells us why we still need a Priest today and why Jesus is the Perfect Priest.
Hebrews 4:14-5:10
A Better Leader
Kyle Kauffman
Israel had some great leaders throughout their history, including especially Moses and Joshua. And yet the author of Hebrews wanted both them and us to see how much of a better leader Jesus is. We often choose what leaders we will trust and follow based on who they are, what they’ve done, and the promises/hope they offer for the future. But we find that all of our leaders in this life end up letting us down sooner or later. They turn out to be flawed just like us and they often fail to deliver on their promises. Hebrews shows us that Jesus is a better leader than any other leader we may trust and follow. And as a result, we must take care to listen to him, trust him, and give our lives to follow him.
Hebrews 3:1-4:13
A Better Savior
Kyle Kauffman
We were made to worship. It’s impossible for us not to worship. Whatever we give our mind’s attention to and our heart’s affection to is what we worship. And there are all sorts of things in this life that compete for our attention and our affection. We can easily end up worshipping the wrong things. So many of thing things in our lives aren’t worthy of our worship. They only end up letting us down in the long run and distracting us from the one who is truly worthy of our worship. It may seem odd to us, but the Hebrews were tempted to worship angels above Jesus. But usually this is how it works: it’s easier for us to see the folly of what someone else is worshipping then it is to see the folly of the things we are prone to worship. Hebrews 1:5-2:4 wants to shift our attention back to the main attraction in the entire universe: Jesus Christ; and to see that only he is truly worthy of our worship.
Hebrews 1:5-2:4
A Better Word
Joel Wood
When presented with different options, we all want to choose what is better. In many ways our lives are one long exercise in trying to choose what is better. Whether it’s what we do with our time, with our money, or with our energy, we are always trying to figure out what is better so that we might give our lives to what pursuing what is better. There are so many voices that give competing ideas of what is better. And these voices can often seek to convince us that there is something better in this life then Jesus. We can start to wonder if trusting Jesus is really worth it…especially when life gets really difficult. We can start to wonder if following Jesus is really worth it… especially when following Him proves costly. Is Jesus really worth putting our trust in and giving our lives to OR is there something better than Jesus? This is a question the people that the book of Hebrews was written to seem to be wrestling with. Life is starting to look and feel like it would be easier if they compromised their belief in Jesus in some way. And so, the author of Hebrews writes them a letter (a sermon) reminding them in all sorts of ways that Jesus is Better! And as he does he encourages and warns followers of Jesus to keep going in their faith and obedience to Jesus because they will find in the end that he really is worth it. The author begins this great sermon by reminding his readers that God’s Voice is more important than anyone else’s and that Jesus is the best Word God has spoken.
Hebrews 1:1-4
Welcoming the Stranger
Kyle Kauffman
It’s easy for the church as a whole and us as individuals to drift in the direction of an inward focus. There are so many needs within the church that we can spend all of our time simply focused on meeting them. But God has given us a mission, and that mission requires us moving out. Moving outward with a welcoming mindset towards those outside the church is uncomfortable and challenging. And yet as we move outward, we do so in the love of Christ, by the power of Christ, with faith in the promises of Christ. As part of God’s family, we can all take steps to move outward and extend welcoming arms toward others in hope that God will use us as a part of welcoming them into his family as well.
Luke 6:32-36
Welcoming the Children
Kyle Kauffman
The tendency in our modern world is to either see children as a burden (keeping us from our dreams) or to see children as an idol (having our dreams wrapped up in them). Children can be seen as an inconvenience or distraction getting in the way of what really matters. God shows his value for children in the fact that He himself became a child. Jesus then demonstrated that children are a gift by welcoming them into his life. We have a God who loves children and welcomes children to himself. The church can and should also look for ways to love and welcome children into our lives in an effort to point them to the God who loves them and wants them to be a part of his family.
Mark 10:13-16
The Welcoming Home
Kyle Kauffman
It is so easy for us to view our homes as our own private refuges and fortresses. They can quickly become the places where we seek to escape the burdens of other people. What would it instead look like if we saw our homes as welcome centers: places where we could invite others in so that we could get to know them and encourage them? What if, ‘Do you want to come over for dinner?’ was a common invitation in our church? What if it was expected that we will regularly sit around a table with others in our church?. What effect might this have on the church? What effect might this have on others looking in on the church? How might God use that?
1 Peter 4:7-11
The Welcoming Church
Kyle Kauffman
The church is meant to be a community that looks and feels different then the world outside of it. The church is meant to be a place where people feel known and seen, loved and valued. We are called to put on display in our culture what we believe in our doctrine. Therefore, if we truly believe God is a welcoming God then we should seek to be a welcoming place and people as the church. However, this does not happen by accident. It happens as God’s grace changes us and motivates us to do the challenging work of welcoming others in. The gospel not only gives us the model for how we are to welcome one another as a church, but it also helps to overcome the fears and desires that would prevent us from being a welcoming people.
James 2:1-13
God Welcomes Us
Brandon Fisher
Welcome is a metaphor for the gospel. Hospitality is central to God’s Heart. The Bible is a story of a God who displays his glory and grace by pursuing the people who have spurned Him in order to welcome them back into His family. This is perhaps displayed nowhere more clearly than in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. We see that all of us have spurned God and deserve to be shunned/abandoned by Him. But we find in this story that God welcomes us not on the basis of our merit, but on the basis of His grace and mercy. We find that God goes above and beyond to welcome us back into His family. We find that it brings God pleasure to display His glory by welcoming people into his family. And we find that understanding how great God’s welcome is of us should lead us to be welcoming people.
Luke 15:11-32