Due to the threat of severe winter weather expected in Central Arkansas, beginning midday Sunday, February 14, the Session has cancelled our in-person worship scheduled for 5:00 pm in the Commons at St. Andrews Church. Please join us via live-stream on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube as we worship with our sister congregation, the Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church at 10:30 am.
COVID-19 Survival Guide
In the exercise of Christian prudence and in response to calls for social distancing, our elders have decided to limit our corporate gatherings to online only. Below is a quick reference guide of links for you to use as we live life together as a church, online, until the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
- We will gather each Sunday at 10:30 am via Facebook Live. This stream will be simulcast to our River City ARP Facebook page. If there are technical issues or if you are not on facebook, the video will be posted on YouTube for later viewing.
- The service will be simple. We will have a call to worship and response, I will lead us through our confession of sin, assurance of pardon, and confession of faith. Then we will share a time of teaching. Our service will conclude with a pastoral prayer, the Lord’s Prayer and then the Benediction.
- Each week we will post a full order of service which also includes the lyrics to some of the songs included on the YouTube playlist. You may listen to these or sing them together in your home gathering. We will not sing them together via the live stream.
- Continue your giving by giving online or for other options go to the Giving link on our website.
- Pray for one another and check in with one another via phone, text, email, social media and even cards and letters.
- Please contact us if you have questions. If you have family members or friends who don’t have good internet access or aren’t quite sure how to navigate this brave new world of virtual gathering, please join them or ask them to join you.
Men’s Bible Study
In 1968, Little Rock native, Charles Portis, published his most famous novel, True Grit, as a weekly serial for the Saturday Evening Post. The story’s main character, Rooster Cogburn, is a washed up, over-the-hill lawman — a man whose vices had robbed him of every shred respect and responsibility. No one expected much of Rooster Cogburn. Nor did he expect much from himself. But young Mattie Ross recognized that somewhere deep inside of him was a man of ‘True Grit.’
The world today does not expect much from men. The growing cultural ambiguity over gender has brought confusion to men regarding their unique identity and calling, robbing men of respect and responsibility. The concept of masculinity has become a vacuum which has sucked up every worldly idea of what makes a man a man.
Men are looking for role models, someone to follow – a narrative to fill the vacuum. In his book, The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell astutely noted that men are drawn to stories of strong men. But what he failed to grasp is that it is real men, not mythical ones, whose examples are needed.
Such men are not to be found in legend or in the movies, but in the Bible. Contrary to the assertions of skeptics, the Bible the most well attested collection of historical stories of great and influential real men. Men who wrestled with the question, “What does it mean to live and lead like a man?” Nehemiah was one of these men. He was a man with ‘true grit.’ The Book of Nehemiah reveals some essential principles for godly manhood, but,
“we do not come to the Bible primarily to study a man’s character or Christian methods, we come to meet God; a message has little value unless it brings us to the feet of our Savior.” Alan Redpath.
Men today are searching for significance — significance in their manhood, their vocation, their role within the family and their world. Men want to know how to live and lead. Nehemiah was confronted with these same challenges as he sought to reform the church and state of his day. His example has much to teach us as men.
Join with other men as we gather Thursday mornings, beginning July 27, from 6:30 – 7:30am at Panera Bread, 10701 Kanis Rd, Little Rock, for fellowship, prayer and discussion of godly manhood from the life of Nehemiah.
The Necessity of a Mediator
As the people of God in Exodus 20 heard the law of God, we are told that they responded in fear. Verses 18-19 tell us, “Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lighting and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.'” The people are seeing and hearing all of these things and these sounds after hearing the law of God spoken by God Himself, and in that law they are given a greater view of His character and His holiness.
The holiness of God really underscores the entirety of the book of Exodus, and as the people of God are brought face to face as it were with His holy law, they recognize that they cannot stand. They need someone to be a Mediator for them–they need someone to speak to God for them and someone to speak God’s Word to them. They need someone to be their intercessor.
Moses is set apart by God as the mediator for God’s people, but he is far from a perfect mediator. He himself is stained by sin, and he cannot atone for the sins of the people. But Moses points us to a greater Mediator–to our Savior Jesus Christ. He is the One who made intercession for His people in John 17. He is the One who offered up Himself as a sacrifice for guilty sinners by bearing their sin and its curse for them. He is the One who even now ever lives to intercede for His people.
As we see our own violations of God’s law, the hope we need is found in Jesus our Mediator. Join us for worship this Lord’s Day at River City Reformed as we consider these truths together. We meet at 9 AM at 9820 West Markham St. (the sanctuary of Faith United Methodist Church). For more information, click here, or contact us. You can also watch our service on YouTube with a link posted to our Facebook page.
Covetousness or Contentment?
The first and the tenth commandments bookend the moral law of God. The two commandments really undergird the others, and the violations of these two commandments drive the violations of the others. The tenth commandment is “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Exodus 20:17) The first commandment is “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3) Both of these commandments are forbidding idolatry. Colossians 3:5, when it refers to the sin of covetousness equates it with idolatry.
That is one reason why covetousness is so deadly–it sets our hearts and affections ultimately on what we might have, what we feel we need to possess, and it keeps us from hoping in God alone. But the command has something to commend as well–contentment. Scripture tells us that “godliness with contentment is great gain.” (1 Timothy 6:6).
This Lord’s Day at River City Reformed we will consider this tenth commandment, but we will also look at what Gospel hope there is for those who have broken the tenth commandment. Christ Himself and His finished work is the answer to our commandment breaking.
Join us this week at 9 AM for worship at 9820 W Markham St in Little Rock (the sanctuary of Faith United Methodist Church). For more information, click here or contact us for more information. You can also watch our service on YouTube with a link posted to our Facebook page.
False Witness
Lying is pervasive in our world. It is often downplayed because it is said that everyone does it. Along with this, gossip and slander are largely considered to be acceptable in our world, and they can far too easily creep into the church as well.
But the ninth commandment forbids lying, gossip and slander while commending truth telling. The commandment says, “‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
When we rightly consider this commandment and all that it has to say, we are rebuked because we realize that we have fallen short. And yet, the Gospel hope is that the Son of God who is true, who never lied yet died in the place of liars, of gossips, of slanderers and revilers. There is hope to found in Him, even for those who have transgressed this, the ninth commandment.
Join us this Lord’s Day at 9 AM for worship at 9820 W Markham St. (the sanctuary of Faith United Methodist Church). For more information, click here, or contact us. You can also watch our service at 9 AM on YouTube with a link posted to our Facebook page.
You Shall Not Steal
This Lord’s Day at River City Reformed, we study the eighth commandment in Exodus 20:15, “You shall not steal.”
When we think of theft, we often think of the sorts of bank robberies or burglaries which we hear about on the news. But there are other, more subtle ways in which this commandment is transgressed.
The good news is that our Savior who never stole yet bore the sin of His people. He even died in the midst of two thieves, and said to one of them, “today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43). Christ bore the sins of all kinds of sinners, including those who were thieves. Join us this Lord’s Day for worship at 9 AM as we consider this command in more detail. We meet at 9820 W Markham St (the sanctuary of Faith United Methodist Church). For more information, click here, or contact us. You can also watch our service on YouTube with a link posted to our Facebook page.
Faithfulness
This Lord’s Day at River City Reformed, we continue in our study of the Ten Commandments and come to the seventh commandment in Exodus 20:14: “You shall not commit adultery.” This commandment, much like the others has to do with far more than what we might first consider at a surface level.
This week we will consider the some of the scope of this command, the underlying principle of faithfulness, and the Gospel hope that our faithful Savior offers to those who have transgressed this commandment.
Join us at 9 AM at 9820 W Markham St in Little Rock (the sanctuary of Faith United Methodist Church) for worship. For more information, click here, or contact us. You can also watch our service on YouTube with a link posted to our Facebook page.
River City Reformed Church 