SERMON SERIES    Hebrews
SERMON TITLE    What Makes Christianity Better?
SERMON DATE    11/16/08
SPEAKER    Jeff Paschall
TEXT    Hebrews 9
One of these movies received the stamp from the American Human Society:  “No animal was harmed in the making of this movie.”  One of them… didn’t.  Guess which.  It’s a funny thought when you see that line… sometimes all through the film… human life is seen shot… blown up… and speared… and grotesquely maimed… …but what the producers and the humane society wanted us to be assured of… is that “No ANIMAL was injured in the making of this film.”  This may sound shocking… maybe a bit confusing… But if the book of Hebrews were a movie… at the end of it… the credits would read…  “Hundreds of thousands… maybe millions of innocent animals… more than anyone could count… including sheep, goats, cows, rams, doves, and pigeons… were killed in gory and bloody fashion… in the making and the keeping of this covenant.”  blood… was everywhere…  and you’ll see why. » Read The Rest

The “Big Ten” are the laws and ordinances of the old agreement that God made with Israel.  That’s where we GET the 10 commandments.  And the Law generally… and the 10 commands specifically… are VERY, very good!  They’re VERY insightful… they’re COMPLETELY true…  but there are a couple of things the 10 commands… WERE NEVER INTENDED TO DO! » Read The Rest

SERMON SERIES    Hebrews
SERMON TITLE    What Makes Christianity Better
SERMON DATE    11/09/08
SPEAKER    Jeff Paschall
TEXT    Hebrews 8
Two times in my life my wife and I have purchased a home.  Maybe you’ve had that same experience.  The choosing… the deciding… the evaluating… and the dreaming all come down to this heart-stopping moment around a table with a 6 inch thick pile of documents.  And those documents spell out the entire transaction.  You scribble your name on that dotted line so many times that your own name begins to look funny.  And the papers and small-print explain all the expectations… the commitments… the terms… that the house and the land… will be ours if we pay a certain amount of money over a certain amount of time at a certain interest rate… and we SIGN everything… we make arrangements with the lenders… and we WALK away… owners (well, co-owners). » Read The Rest

I’ll never forget the woman who couldn’t wrap her mind around the truth that confessing her sin to me… did nothing to right her relationship with God!  I had to let her down!  “I CAN’T DO THAT!”  Countless times I’ve waded in to untangle a complicated relational mess… help them sort things out… show them the spiritual side of it all… and put things on the right track… and like trying to hold a bucket full of sand with your fingers… the relationship unravels beyond my ability to fix… I TRIED… but somehow… I wasn’t enough!  The times I’ve prayed for a person struggling through a critical issue or clinging to life itself!  And I prayed… I prayed often… I prayed as much as I could… I prayed more than most… but I’d stop to eat… or spend time with family.  And the issue went bad!  What we feared worst… happened! » Read The Rest