The Ranch Church Podcast

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How do we find joy more easily, more often, and more honestly while we are still carrying pain? In this session from the 2026 Ranch Church Women’s Retreat, Anabeth Morgan of the Arvada Vineyard in Colorado opens the long-held Vineyard teaching of the now and the not yet: the kingdom of God has truly come in Jesus, and it has not yet fully come. Forget the now, and we live in despair. Forget the not yet, and we blame ourselves when the pain does not go away. Our suffering is real because it belongs to the not yet, and our joy is real because it belongs to the now, and the two belong together in the same story.

Drawing on Romans 8, Habakkuk 3, and Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians, Anabeth shows four ways suffering trains our eyes for joy. It strips away counterfeit joy built on comfort and circumstances. It makes our world smaller, so the small gifts of God become visible. It makes our joy honest, the kind Paul describes as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. And it joins us to Jesus, who endured the cross for the joy set before him. From John 16 she shows that sorrow is not simply replaced by joy but turned into joy, like labor giving way to birth. She closes with four simple practices: lament first, keep a kingdom sighting list, hold joy without guilt, and rejoice and weep together in community. The session ends with an invitation to come forward for prayer.

Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 4:8-10; 2 Corinthians 6:10; Romans 8:18-23; Habakkuk 3:17-18; Hebrews 12:2; John 16:20-21; Psalm 13; Romans 12:15

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God is reclaiming sacred space, and the first ground he wants back is your heart. Closing out Hebrews 12, Pastor Rick Soto brings a message he calls Sacred Space and Consuming Fire, from verses 25 through 29. He begins with the long view, from the Garden of Eden and the tabernacle to the cross, and on to Revelation 20 and 21, where God defeats the enemy, makes all things new, and wipes away every tear. Everything God made has been defiled, and he wants it back. Turning to Hebrews, Rick warns against refusing the one who speaks, because saying no to God’s invitation is rejecting the person who sent it. God likes to shake things up. He shook Sinai, he promised through Haggai to shake the heavens and the earth, and he still shakes our lives so that what cannot be shaken will remain. His fire is personal, calling Moses by name at the burning bush. It is purifying, touching Isaiah’s unclean lips. And it is powerful, like a Word that breaks the rock in pieces. Rick describes reverence as a blend of three ingredients, adoration, repentance, and humility, mixed together like a Caribbean sofrito that fills the whole house. The message closes with the call of verse 28 to be grateful for a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and an invitation to come forward for prayer and find new stability on solid ground.

Scriptures: Hebrews 12:25-29; Revelation 20:1-15; Revelation 21:1-4; Exodus 3:1-6; Exodus 19:18; Haggai 2:6-7; Isaiah 6:1-7; Jeremiah 23:29; Matthew 3:11; Leviticus 10:1-2; 2 Samuel 6:6-7; Revelation 3:20

You’re listening to the Ranch Church Podcast. For more information and service times, go to ranchchurch.com.

In a world short on clarity about marriage, money, family, the future, and God himself, Hebrews 12 brings things into focus. Continuing through the book of Hebrews, Pastor Rick Soto opens verses 18 through 24 in a message he calls Clarity for Unclear People. The passage sets two mountains side by side. At Sinai, pictured in Exodus 24, God’s holiness came down in fire, darkness, and the sound of a trumpet, and the people begged to hear no more. But in Christ we have come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, to angels in festal gathering, to the assembly of the firstborn, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. Rick draws out five truths for unclear times. God is holy, and we struggle to see his holiness because we misunderstand grace, which he illustrates with a classroom story from R.C. Sproul. God keeps an eternal covenant, not a contract, and brings us into his royal family with headship, authority, and celebration. God’s people belong to God, so sin, the enemy, and death no longer have the final word. God is the judge, and through Jesus our advocate his justice is satisfied. And God brings his children home. Along the way Rick explains what Scripture means by firstborn, from David and Ephraim to Colossians 1, where Jesus is shown to be preeminent over all creation. The message closes with prayer that the Holy Spirit would burn into our hearts the truth that we belong to him.

Scriptures: Hebrews 12:18-24; Exodus 24:1-11; Genesis 18:25; Psalm 89:27; Jeremiah 31:9; Colossians 1:15-17; Matthew 6:9-10; Romans 3:26; 1 John 2:1-2

You’re listening to the Ranch Church Podcast. For more information and service times, go to ranchchurch.com.

The Christian life is not a sprint. It is a marathon, and Hebrews 12 shows us how to finish it well. Continuing through the book of Hebrews, Jeff Clay turns to chapter 12, verses 12 through 17, where the author speaks like a running coach to a weary church. Grounded in the great cloud of witnesses and eyes fixed on Jesus, Jeff walks through what to pursue and what to guard against. Run tough, strengthening feeble arms and weak knees, knowing every hardship passes through the Lord first. Run together, making level paths so the weaker brother or sister is healed instead of left behind. Pursue peace and holiness with everything you have, even going to make things right with someone who has something against you. Then the warnings: don’t fall behind the pace of God’s grace through unconfessed sin, neglect of the Word, or isolation from the body; don’t let the bitter root of idolatry take hold; and don’t live like Esau, ruled by appetite, who traded his birthright for a single meal. Jeff calls the church to be heaven bound, not earthbound, and never to sell a glorious finish for a cheap meal. The message closes with the prayer team inviting the church forward.

Scriptures: Hebrews 12:1-3, 12-17; Hebrews 3:13; Hebrews 10:25; Matthew 5:23-24; Ephesians 4:3; Ephesians 3:18-19; Romans 5:20; Deuteronomy 29:18; Genesis 25:29-34

You’re listening to the Ranch Church Podcast. For more information and service times, go to ranchchurch.com.

God is a good Father, and he disciplines the ones he loves. Continuing in Hebrews 12, Pastor Rick Soto brings a message he calls How Father God Embraces You, from verses 5 through 11. The letter was written to believers who had suffered for doing what was right, some losing homes and livelihoods for standing up for Jesus, and the author reminds them that hardship is not a sign God has left them but evidence that he is treating them as his own children. Rick asks the church to set aside the cultural filter that hears discipline as harshness. Discipline is God’s yes and God’s no, given for our good, so that we may share in his holiness, and holiness turns out to be the path to real happiness. Through the contrast of Jacob and Esau, he shows that being left without discipline is the true cause for concern. From Proverbs he draws a portrait of the Father who teaches, warns, speaks with urgency, disciplines, celebrates, and enjoys his children. He then names what it means to have God as Father: power and authority, guidance, his presence in our loneliness, mercy, transformation, oneness, and adoption as sons and daughters. The message closes with an invitation to come out of an orphan spirit and let God embrace you as Father, as the prayer team invites the church forward.

Scriptures: Hebrews 12:5-11; Hebrews 10:32-34; Proverbs 3:11-12; Exodus 4:22-23; Deuteronomy 8:5; Psalm 68:5; Psalm 103:13; Isaiah 64:8; John 14-17; Romans 8:14-15; Ephesians 1:5