Sermons From Grace Baptist Church of Richmond Hill

The flood showed that sin runs deeper than outward behaviour. Even after terrifying judgment, the human heart remained corrupt. This message looks at the covenant with Noah and why tougher laws and punishments alone can’t bring the change we need.

Not even paradise and a perfect Father could keep Adam from sinning. If Eden wasn’t enough to keep him from disobedience, why do we place all of the blame on our past and all of our hope in better circumstances? This message looks at the covenant with Adam and why our hope must rest in something deeper than our environment.

How are our prayers shaped by the attitudes of our hearts? Are we self-sufficient, or reliant on Christ? As we prepare our hearts for the New Year, let’s study Christ’s parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector to realign our heart posture with the good promise of the gospel.

Mary’s song gives voice to those who long for change in the world. She celebrates a God who reverses the patterns that oppress. This message looks at how Christ’s coming begins the revolution our hearts seek.

Mary’s life was disrupted by an announcement that didn’t make sense. She struggled to understand how God’s promise could be good. This message looks at how God helps us to trust Him when we can’t see the whole picture.

Zechariah and Elizabeth had lived faithfully, but it seemed like God had passed them by. Their experience speaks to those who feel overlooked or unheard. This message looks at how God remembers us even when we forget His mercy.

Christians sometimes assume that the Christmas stories should be believed. Luke’s gospel begins by addressing those who need more convincing. This message looks at the evidence for the gospel accounts of the birth of Christ.

Hardship and repeated sin can leave us feeling as if God is done with us. But even when the Israelites seemed beyond hope, God remained committed to their blessing. This message looks at the hope that comes from realizing God’s grace is more stubborn than our sin.

When we question God’s goodness and grumble about His ways, the consequences can be disastrous. This message looks at how God used a bronze serpent to help His people confront their sin and His solution to it.

Even the most faithful leaders stumble when they stop trusting God’s Word. Moses’ failure at Meribah is a warning to us today. This message looks at what cost him the Promised Land and what it means to live by faith instead of frustration.

In this message, we will study our tendency to replace God with substitutes. The problem is that these substitutes are not neutral—they enslave us. Asking for great things can be either good or disastrous. We’ll see the difference between these two outcomes and discover why Jesus as King is the better option for a life of freedom and new identity.

It’s one thing to regret sin’s consequences. It’s another to truly turn back to God. Israel mourned God’s discipline but moved ahead without His leading. This message looks at how false repentance can lead to even deeper problems.

We often want God’s blessings without the risk of obedience. Fear can keep us from experiencing God’s best. This message looks at how we respond when obedience feels impossible, and God’s promises seem too good to be true.

There are times when the demands are overwhelming, and it feels like nothing we do is enough. This message looks at how God’s wisdom and Spirit can bring relief in those moments.

Cravings can cloud our judgment and make us forget God’s goodness, and when we give into them, it costs us spiritually. This message looks at how God exposes misplaced desires and teaches us to rest in His provision.

We tend to measure spirituality by the verses we read, the sermons we hear, and the meetings we attend. Jesus, instead, talked about foot washing. Humble service of one another in the body of Christ is at the heart of God’s plan for the Christian life. This message looks at what happens when believers wash one another’s feet.

Every believer has been given a gift to enable their unique contribution to the mission of the church in the world. But when we ignore those gifts, the church misses out and so do we. This message looks at the gifts that God has given us to serve Him.

One of the great privileges of the Christian life is serving our King. Often this service is categorized in three ways…delight, duty, or disregard. Where would you place yourself in light of these three descriptors? Today, we want to look through a lens that may help re-focus your service into one of delight.

The professional student is the person who finds comfort in the perpetual learning of the university but lacks the courage or direction to put their learning into practice. The same problem can easily take place in the church. This message looks at God’s plan to equip believers to make an impact in the world.

Growth threatened the health of the early church. Overworked leaders were in danger of sacrificing what was most important for what felt most urgent. As they empowered others to join in the ministry, the priorities were preserved, and the needs were addressed. This message looks at how God invites people to join in the mission where they’re needed most.

God has entrusted you with unique gifts, talents, and opportunities, but what you believe about His character determines what you'll do with them. Our view of God either paralyzes us with fear or propels us into faithful action. This message explores how understanding God's grace frees us from regret over missed opportunities and empowers us to invest our lives for His kingdom.

Our vision of God radically impacts every part of us; a distorted view of God leads to a distorted life. If we are to be all God wants us to be, we need to see Him for who He really is: our great and good God, who knows, sees, and loves us perfectly.

Most of us are dehydrated and don’t know it. The same is true for our souls—we recognize our soul’s need for wholeness, satisfaction, and relief, and often seek to find them in anything but God. Psalm 42 helps us seek out the real source of our soul’s thirst, how we can satisfy that thirst, and how preaching to ourselves rejuvenates and invigorates our worship and spiritual life.

Anything we do regularly can lose its meaning. When that happens with church, our hearts can begin to drift from God. This message helps us recapture a vision of gathered worship that rekindles our desire and stirs our anticipation.

We so often allow our lives and priorities to be defined and shaped by all sorts of external phenomena; but what if God’s design for worship was the method by which we are shaped into all that God has called us to be? David’s Psalm 16 calls us to declare and rejoice in all that God is and what He’s done for us—to be shaped by our worship of Him.