Sermons and Teaching
Feel free to download one Bible study, or all of them!
We are happy to offer these recordings and texts of teachings at Riverside Baptist Church under the free Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works License version 2.5 or later. This means you can share these files as long as you don't change them nor make money from them and you acknowledge where you got them.
Please see the section About These Recordings for more information or help.
"Encouraging Words in Troubling Times" - A Study of 1 Thessalonians
Have you heard the ancient Greek expression "Maranatha" before? It means, "O Lord, come!" As Christians, our great Hope is the promise of our Lord’s return for us. We long for that day of being snatched up into the clouds to meet Him in the air!
In the first century, the city of Thessalonica was a hard place to live for Jesus, but the Apostle Paul's first letter to the church there encouraged them to keep moving forward as they followed in the path of Jesus. Interestingly, every chapter ends with a reference to the Lord’s return.
Those of us seeking to live for Jesus amidst the trials of today can receive encouragement too, as we study Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, and we also look for His coming again. Maranatha!
| Encouraging Words in Troubling Times - 1 Thessalonians | |
 Introduction: Thessalonica, the People and the Letter (audio) | downloads: 15 | type: mp3 | size: 11 MB |
| How to be a Healthy Christian in a Healthy Church (audio) | downloads: 14 | type: mp3 | size: 14 MB |
| Are You Sure? (audio) | downloads: 14 | type: mp3 | size: 16 MB |
| Witnessing For Christ the Right Way (audio) | downloads: 13 | type: mp3 | size: 13 MB |
| How to Bless Your Church! (audio) | downloads: 9 | type: mp3 | size: 12 MB |
| Persecution - Would You Stand? (audio) | downloads: 14 | type: mp3 | size: 18 MB |
| People, People, People (audio) | downloads: 15 | type: mp3 | size: 12 MB |
| Walking Jesus' Way (audio) | downloads: 12 | type: mp3 | size: 14 MB |
| Ready for the Lord's Return (audio) | downloads: 12 | type: mp3 | size: 13 MB |
| Hope in the Face of Death (audio) | downloads: 9 | type: mp3 | size: 13 MB |
The Jewel of Worship
A.W. Tozer, the great Bible teacher and preacher, called worship, “the missing jewel of the Evangelical church."
We sought to study and rediscover this jewel, considering the heart of what worship is, the wonder of God, the teaching of Jesus, the worship of dedication, how to worship with the saints, and more.
Join us and fill your life with worship, true worship that is worthy of our awesome God!
| The Jewel of Worship | |
| Worship - What Is It? (audio) | downloads: 81 | type: mp3 | size: 14 MB |
| Worship and the Wonder of God (audio) | downloads: 73 | type: mp3 | size: 10 MB |
| Worshipping God and Him Only (audio) | downloads: 78 | type: mp3 | size: 12 MB |
| Jesus' Words on Worship (audio) | downloads: 68 | type: mp3 | size: 14 MB |
| The Worship of Dedication (audio) | downloads: 68 | type: mp3 | size: 12 MB |
| Worshipping With The Saints (audio) | downloads: 65 | type: mp3 | size: 8 MB |
Luke's Portrait of Christ
The familiar story of the Christ Child's birth is always being retold.
Come join us as we look at the miraculous gift of the Father to the world. Gain a fresh perspective as we look at the events surrounding this special time of year, as told though the narrative written by Doctor Luke.
It's a message of hope, grace, and service, sometimes told through the medium of song, even in the Bible.
| Candlelight Christmas Eve Carol Sing (38MB!) | downloads: 93 | type: mp3 | size: 36 MB |
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| Luke's Portrait of Christ - Christmas 2010 | |
| Luke's Introduction to Christ (audio) | downloads: 83 | type: mp3 | size: 9 MB |
| Hope for the Longing Heart (audio) | downloads: 82 | type: mp3 | size: 11 MB |
| Of Grace and Service (audio) | downloads: 99 | type: mp3 | size: 8 MB |
| Christmas Songs of Praise (audio) | downloads: 85 | type: mp3 | size: 11 MB |
| Christ Was Born (audio) | downloads: 88 | type: mp3 | size: 9 MB |
| Jesus Was a Teenager Too (audio) | downloads: 78 | type: mp3 | size: 13 MB |
Twelve Ordinary Men: Learning Lessons from the 12 Apostles
There has always been a certain mystique surrounding the 12 Apostles. But who were these men? When we study them we find out that they were ordinary people like you and me.
In this series, we examine each Apostle and find lessons for us as given in the Biblical record. Each of these men had unique strengths and weakness, but God was able to use them powerfully when they surrendered to His will. Like them, God can use us, if we learn the lessons the Bible presents through them.
We also look at what happened to the Apostles after Jesus’ ascension to Heaven, as they took the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth.
| 12 Ordinary Men: Learning From the Twelve Apostles | |
| The Twelve - Men Like You and Me (audio) | downloads: 106 | type: mp3 | size: 11 MB |
| Andrew Brought People To Jesus (audio) | downloads: 82 | type: mp3 | size: 9 MB |
| Peter - The Born\Made Leader (audio) | downloads: 88 | type: mp3 | size: 10 MB |
| James - The Apostle of Passion (audio) | downloads: 76 | type: mp3 | size: 9 MB |
| John - The Apostle of Truth and Love (audio) | downloads: 82 | type: mp3 | size: 9 MB |
| Phillip - The Calculating Apostle (audio) | downloads: 81 | type: mp3 | size: 11 MB |
| Nathanael - The Genuine Apostle (audio) | downloads: 81 | type: mp3 | size: 12 MB |
| Mathew - The Tax Collector (audio) | downloads: 90 | type: mp3 | size: 9 MB |
| Thomas - The Struggling Apostle (audio) | downloads: 80 | type: mp3 | size: 11 MB |
| Obscure To Us But Not To God (audio) | downloads: 79 | type: mp3 | size: 15 MB |
| Judas: The Disillusioned Apostle (audio) | downloads: 84 | type: mp3 | size: 9 MB |
Summer 2010
This summer's topics have a wide variety of topics. Everything from how to have peace in our lives to the awesome resource of prayer to how the substitutionary death of Christ makes it possible for us to be reconciled with God. Sample one of them or all!
| Summer 2010 | |
| Peace - God's Pathway to the Soul (audio) | downloads: 129 | type: mp3 | size: 8 MB |
| Prayer - Everything is Yours (audio) | downloads: 108 | type: mp3 | size: 11 MB |
| Reconciliation - The Substitution of Christ (audio) | downloads: 105 | type: mp3 | size: 9 MB |
| Responding to the Revelation of God (audio) | downloads: 111 | type: mp3 | size: 9 MB |
The Church: 5 Keys to Understanding
What is this thing called "the church"? Is it a building? A body? An organization?
Where did it come from? Why is even here? Why would I want to be a member?
To answer these questions and more, we turn once again to the Bible where we find the birth of the church. The church of Jesus Christ is an organization, a body, a community, the bride of Christ as well as the body of Christ. It is dedicated to living out the will of God on Earth, which includes many different functions and operations.
This short series discusses five keys to understanding the church - its nature, origin, purpose, leadership and membership.
| The Church: 5 Keys to Understanding | |
| The Nature of the Church (audio) | downloads: 189 | type: mp3 | size: 15 MB |
| The Beginning of the Church (audio) | downloads: 144 | type: mp3 | size: 10 MB |
| The Purpose of the Church (audio) | downloads: 156 | type: mp3 | size: 12 MB |
| The Leadership of the Church (audio) | downloads: 167 | type: mp3 | size: 13 MB |
| The Membership of the Church (audio) | downloads: 142 | type: mp3 | size: 12 MB |
 The Nature of the Church (text) | downloads: 770 | type: pdf | size: 331 kB |
| The Beginning of the Church (text) | downloads: 169 | type: pdf | size: 326 kB |
| The Purpose of the Church (text) | downloads: 246 | type: pdf | size: 321 kB |
| The Leadership of the Church (text) | downloads: 266 | type: pdf | size: 323 kB |
| The Membership of the Church (text) | downloads: 204 | type: pdf | size: 337 kB |
Lord, Teach us to Pray: Praying as Jesus taught us
The great Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon, said that prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscles of Omnipotence. Another said that prayer is helplessness casting itself upon power. Samual Chadwick said, "The church that multiplies committees and neglects prayer may be fussy, noisy, and enterpising, but it labours in vain and spends its strength for naught. It is possible to excel in mechanics and fail in dynamics. There is abundance of machinery; what is wanting is power."
So, as a church and believers in Jesus, we must be a praying people. To help us over the next couple months our Sunday sermons will be on the Lord's Prayer, or as some call it, the Disciples' Prayer. Jesus spent much time in prayer. His disciples observed this and so asked Him to teach them to pray. We can be thankful that He did, giving us this model for our praying. Let's learn about it together and put it into practice.
Back to our Roots
Who am I? Where do I come from? Where do we come from? How did the world come to be? Why are 
there so many bad things in the world? Is it all just random chance, meaning nothing?
Everyone asks — and should ask — foundational questions like these. But where can we find a true and satisfying answer? The best way would be from someone who was there, right at the beginning, who saw everything. But how can we find someone like that?
The Bible starts with these four powerful words: "In the beginning, God..."
This study looks at how we and the world came to be in our current situation, and what God did about it.
| Back to our Roots: A Study in Genesis | |
| Genesis 1:1a - Looking Back, Going Forward | downloads: 341 | type: mp3 | size: 13 MB |
| Genesis 1:1b God's Creation and the Collapse of Evolution | downloads: 169 | type: mp3 | size: 13 MB |
| Genesis 1:1a - Looking Back, Going Forward (Text) | downloads: 562 | type: pdf | size: 246 kB |
| Genesis 1:1b God's Creation and the Collapse of Evolution (text) | downloads: 240 | type: pdf | size: 259 kB |
Contend for the Faith
The Book of Jude
Interest in 
"spirituality" seems to be on the rise these days. Most people however, seem to demand an easy religious experience and demand acceptance of any and all points of view -- except that of the Bible. There are many religious leaders who are more than happy to offer what people want to hear -- an easy way to be "spiritual" without worrying about what God actually wants.
This isn't new. Jude wrote to the early church, and warned there would be "false teachers" who would try to corrupt the Good News of Jesus and His sacrifice and lead many from safety into dangerous beliefs. He pleaded with them to stay true to the faith that they learned... and fight for the "truth, delivered once for all" whenever anyone tried to change it. Not as aggressors, but pleading for their souls, in love and truth.
The Songs of Ascents
Psalms 120-134: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
In the Bible, a disciple is a follower of Jesus. So, discipleship is about living as a follower of Jesus Christ.
What does that mean? How do we follow Christ? What will it cost us? How does God promise to help us?
This series is taken from the Songs of Ascents - psalms that the Jewish pilgrims sang on their yearly journey up the mountain to Jerusalem.
Following Jesus requires a long-term commitment as we follow God's call to follow Him, one step at a time: a long obedience in the same direction.
Each of the audio MP3 files are listed together, followed by the full text in PDF format.
About these Recordings
How to use these files
We typically record our Sunday Worship and special sermons and make them available for review online and on CD. If you click on the name of the file above, you can listen online (if your media player & browser are set to stream MP3 files), or your browser may prompt you to open, download or save the file for later listening on your computer or MP3 player.
We also try to make a text copy of the sermon available in PDF format. This is usually available only for regular Sunday services. If you cannot read PDF files for some reason, please let us know and we will try to get the file to you in another format.
Please note: In order to provide you with reasonable good sound quality, the MP3 files are fairly large, usually at least 8-14 MB. The audio files are 30-40 minutes long on average, ten times longer than a typical song but only a couple times as big, so that's pretty good!
However, if you are on a slow broadband connection or use a telephone dial-up Internet connection, the files will take a long time to transfer to your computer. If you are streaming online, you will likely have pauses (called "buffering") the first time you listen to a file.
Tips for those with frequent buffering issues:
- If you have a dial-up or slower broadband connection to the Internet, save the MP3 file to your computer hard drive, and then listen after it has finished downloading.
- Close as many other programs as possible, except your web browser of course, and stop any other web pages from downloading data
- If the media player opens immediately and you can't figure out how to save the file to your computer, click Pause on your media player and wait until the file completely downloads. (Most media players use a number or a coloured bar to show how much of the file remains to be downloaded.) You will then be able to restart playback from the beginning and listen without any pauses.
License
These sermons are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
This basically allows you to keep the documents forever, use them as long as you're not making money from them and you identify riversidebaptistchurch.ca as the source, and even legally give complete unchanged copies to anyone you wish. You can host or link to our website download page as well. For the official license, please visit the Creative Commons website link above.
For the official granting of these rights, and the current license if any change in status should occur, please see the permanent page at http://riversidebaptistchurch.ca/usage.php