Resurrection City Church exists to minister to St Paul, MN. Our vision is to glorify God by seeing people, our city, and the world made new in Jesus, our Savior and King.
Episodes
Monday Dec 05, 2022
Monday Dec 05, 2022
When we meet Mary, she’s engaged and excited to live out her plans, of a new husband and children and community.
But then an Angel show up and disrupts those plans with the announcement that she is part of God’s story to give birth to a son she never expected. This would totally derail her plans.
This happens to us sometimes too. We can learn a lot from Mary’s response. We get 3 things when we embrace God’s story instead of clinging to our own: Joy, Significance, and Jesus. Hope Leadership Team member Brett Ripley preaches on this incredible story in this sermon, reflecting on his own story.
Sunday Nov 27, 2022
Sunday Nov 27, 2022
This Advent, we are looking at how people in Scripture respond to hearing the good news of Jesus's coming. First, we look at Zechariah and how he responds to the news with cynicism. Through tracing God's faithfulness through the story of the Bible and seeing how God always keeps his word, we see that hope is a better response than cynicism. Pastor Julie ends the message with some thoughts on how we can have hope in our own lives.
Sunday Nov 20, 2022
Sunday Nov 13, 2022
Sunday Nov 13, 2022
Gamophobia is “the fear of commitment.” It’s common for us to fear truly committing to things, for lack of certainty, for the belief that keeping our options open leads to more happiness, and because we want to try and have it all, thinking sacrificing other options isn’t necessary.
But Jesus says it doesn’t work like that if you want to follow him.
To truly follow the Way of Jesus, we need to sacrifice other options sometimes. We need to be willing to walk the narrow, well-defined path that constitutes Jesus’s teaching, which Jesus says is light and leads to life. How can we do this confidently when we fear commitment? Pastor Joel breaks it all down in this second to last message in our Sermon on the Mount series.
Wednesday Nov 09, 2022
Wednesday Nov 09, 2022
We had so many questions after our sermon on Matt. 6:25-34 and the concept of worry that we decided to continue the conversation on the podcast!
Julie, Lisa, Drew, and Catie talk about what it looks like to follow Jesus when you're battling anxiety, how to deal with regret and decision paralysis, and how the church is called to care for others. There is so much wisdom in this episode; you don't want to miss it!
Sunday Nov 06, 2022
Sunday Nov 06, 2022
“Well, sure, maybe I made a mistake, but what about them?” We say and feel this more than we’d care to admit. Jesus tells us this impulse does not fit his kingdom. When we pivot blame off of ourselves onto someone else, we’re helping no one. Jesus calls us to something higher than that in our lives if we’re going to follow him.
In this sermon, Joel unpacks this passage and explains how it connects to a deeper theme in Scripture, that of our shared complicity with sin. How does understanding this unfortunate truth about ourselves help us to navigate the situations where we fear someone noticing our problems? Listen and find out!
Sunday Oct 30, 2022
Sunday Oct 30, 2022
In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus calls his followers not to worry. Easier than it sounds! But Jesus walks us through why we don't need to worry – because he is our creator, provider, and sustainer.
He also invites us to consider what worry might be saying about the state of our heart and which master we are following, and he ends with a challenge and encouragement to seek him first above all else. Pastor Julie walks through it all in this sermon.
Monday Oct 24, 2022
Monday Oct 24, 2022
Would you rather acquire treasure for right now or treasure that lasts forever? That’s the question Jesus puts to us in the passage Pastor Joel unpacks in this sermon. It goes to the heart of what many consider the most essential part of their safety: their bank accounts. The world runs on money, and we live the story where money is the author: having no money, then as we grow, gaining more and more and all the ‘stuff’ that comes with it: the big house, the fancy car, the lavish vacations, etc.
But what if Jesus says being a disciple means living in a different story? Instead, he tells us we should seek out treasures in heaven, so that we might not be mastered by money. In this sermon, Joel talks about what treasures in heaven are and why they are essential, as well as consider what it means for us to respond to Jesus’ message with our own money and resources.
Wednesday Oct 19, 2022
Wednesday Oct 19, 2022
We had so many great questions come in after our sermon on Matthew 5:38-48, where Jesus calls us to turn the other cheek, that we had to go deeper than a few questions after the sermon. So, we recorded a conversation between Joel and Julie and Res City members Andrea Kidder and Luke Sandstrom, sharing thoughts on some of the harder questions around living these words of Jesus out truly and practically. Questions ranged from war, abuse, the death penalty, violence in the Old Testament, what does turning the other cheek actually mean, and more!
Sunday Oct 16, 2022
Sunday Oct 16, 2022
The Lord’s Prayer is one of the most famous sections in the Sermon on the Mount. But something we can often miss is that in the context of Jesus’ sermon the prayer is, as commentator RT France points out, a “literary digression.” In other words, the point of the passage is not merely, “this is how you ought to pray.”
The context is about the principle that the radical obedience Jesus calls us to cannot be measured by how good we look to people around us. We struggle with that all the time, however, and so like a physical or occupational therapist giving us exercises to heal from an injury, Jesus gives us this prayer to help us pray in a way that keeps us focused on obeying Jesus. In this sermon, Joel walks through the prayer to show us how it helps us to live radically like Jesus has called us to.