Resurrection City Church - St. Paul Minnesota

Stay Salty | Faith that Delights God

Faith is one of the most commonly discussed concepts in the whole Bible. Almost every single book of the New Testament refers to it. It’s how we begin and continue a Christian life of discipleship. It’s so central that the author of Hebrews writes, “It is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6). What does faith that pleases or delights God look like? In this message, Pastor Joel tackles that question and talks about how we can focus on Jesus to fortify four legs of a stool of faith and be people who can manage through wavering and being of two minds when trust is required.

Stay Salty | Easter: The Resurrection and Us

We’ve been in a series about how what makes Christians weird is what makes them “salty”, people who can make the world much better than it is. Probably the strangest thing Christians believe is that a man convicted and executed as a criminal came back to life again and now we worship him as God and rescuer of our souls. The writer and pastor Paul says in his letter to a group of Christians in the ancient city of Corinth (1 Corinthians 15) that the resurrection of Jesus is at the very heart of what we believe and how we live. It’s because Jesus has ended the dynasty over all humanity that death had, and when he returns all who trust in him will be raised again like him. In this Easter message, Pastor Joel unpacks how knowing what the rest of the world doesn’t yet helps us be people who live out hope and love and fulfill Jesus’ call to be salty.

Stay Salty | Fighting Our Flesh

We’re all pretty aware there is something off with all of us, even if we might not be able to put our finger on it. For centuries, psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, artists and more have been trying to figure out what it is. Christians have always understood the problem to be that we have become enslaved to our “flesh”—our primal, deepest and–yes–most most authentic desires for self-gratification. But so often we are told the real problem we face is actually that we haven’t given ourselves over to our deepest and most authentic desires as much as we should!  In this message, Pastor Joel walks through the tension between the Christian view and the worldly one and explains Jesus’s answer for what to do about what is wrong with us, and how his answer makes us salt for a world hat badly needs it.

Stay Salty | Hell

The stats say most people believe in some kind of afterlife. But many who believe there’s something beyond this life struggle to believe in the idea of a hell. It’s a distinct belief Christians have, one which if we’re honest makes us uncomfortable sometimes, too. In this message, Pastor Joel walks through several important passages of Scripture to share what hell is actually going to be like according to Jesus and the biblical authors, which is: the space that exists on the margins of the new creation where what doesn’t have a future in God’s newly restored earth will reside by its own choice. There’s a lot to unpack here, and this message tackles it and explains why we need to talk about it even if it makes us squeamish.

Stay Salty | True God and True Human

One of the most basic beliefs of Christians, one that is very odd when you think about it, is the doctrine that Jesus is God incarnate, fully human and fully God. This is weird because it works backwards from how we’d expect it to go: normally we’d want to get rid of our embodiedness and the limitations that come with being human, not take it on. Yet, this is exactly what God does, and he does it for several important reasons. As Pastor Joel explains in this message, he does it to show us embodiedness is good, to lead a jailbreak from the prison of sin from the inside, and to show us, as he lives as a human, what it means to be truly human. Taking these seriously helps us to be salt, just as Jesus taught us.

My Sheep Know My Voice | Hacked: Counterfeit Voices to God’s Voice

This series has been all about hearing the voice of God and how a life of regularly hearing it leads us into all God wants for us. As we close this series out, it’s important to realize God’s voice is not the only one trying to speak to and influence us. There is also Satan. Revelation 12:9 tells us that Satan is an ancient monster and foe of God, the serpent who was in the garden with Adam and Eve, and who is a “deceiver”. We could say as a deceiver, he’s like a hacker who is trying to convince us he’s God, or at least that what he’s selling us is more noble and good than what God has to offer.

In this message, Pastor Joel explains how Satan’s playbook has been the same for centuries, telling us the same three part lie: (1) Distance yourself from God. (2) Do your own thing. (3) Redefine good and evil based on your own gut and desire.

We see Satan successfully use this lie on the first humans, but then fail to do it with Jesus. What is the difference? Listening to and hearing God’s voice. You won’t want to miss this fitting conclusion to our series on the voice of God.

My Sheep Know My Voice | Hindrances to Hearing God’s Voice

We’ve spent a lot of time in this series talking about how to hear the voice of the shepherd, which Jesus promised was a reality for his followers in John 10, but the reality is there are times we will miss it. Many people report they have a frustrating experience trying to hear God’s voice. The Bible actually has a lot to say about why we might miss hearing God’s voice, and it’s a common enough experience that it's worth its own sermon.

In this message, Pastor Joel walks through several stories in scripture where we see people struggling to hear God’s voice, considering what we might learn from them. On the one hand, it might have to do with realities in the spiritual world outside of our control that we deal with as we open ourselves up to the spiritual world and listen to the voice of a spiritual being. And on the other hand, sometimes it’s “user error,” issues with our lives or hearts that crowd out the voice of God finding its way to us. The good news is that Jesus has made it so we never have to fear God has shut us out from him for good if we earnestly seek him.

My Sheep Know My Voice | Hearing God’s Voice in Scripture

This series has focused on God’s voice in six specific ways that we know he speaks to people, but we can’t ever take it for granted that God does and has spoken to us most strongly in the Bible itself. It might happen more than you think that you’re waiting for God to speak to you through one of the means we’ve discussed in the series already but you might not realize the answer you seek is already there waiting for you in Scripture. In this message, Pastor Joel unpacks how Scripture is God’s word and how it has a power to it that is unique among books to deconstruct and cultivate our hearts and minds. He also talks about several important ways to discern the voice of God in Scripture.

My Sheep Know My Voice | The Still, Small Voice of God

God speaks to us through many styles of communication, but perhaps none is so common as what is often called the still, small voice: a voice that comes to us like a thought in our head but that we can recognize to as a thought from God. We see this voice used in the famous story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19, and Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians 2. It signifies a closeness to us from God that indicates his great love for us and desire for intimacy. In this message Pastor Joel explains how this voice works and gets really practical about how we can distinctly tell God’s voice apart from the other thoughts in our head. Get your phone’s notepad app open with this one. You’re going to need it!

My Sheep Know My Voice | God Speaks Through Human Voices

When we consider how God speaks, spectacular methods like dreams, visions, angels and more might come to mind. And while God does speaking in those ways—as we’ve studied already in this series—more often he speaks to us in “ordinary” ways, such as the topic of this message: a human voice. In this message, Pastor Joel explains what is happening when God speaks through people, some common ways it happens, and how when God does speak through people like us it’s a parable of the gospel.