Resurrection City Church - St. Paul Minnesota

He Refreshes My Soul | Meditating on God’s Word

if we aren’t listening to his voice? Meditating on and memorizing Scripture helps us to listen to the voice of God in our daily lives and ultimately shapes us to be more Christ-like. 

In a world where we rarely slow down to fully read something (TL;DR), meditating on and memorizing Scripture is often neglected. In this sermon, Julie makes the case for taking our time with God’s word and gives practical ways to spend time committing it to our hearts and minds.

He Refreshes My Soul | Connecting the Deep Parts of Ourselves to God in Prayer

Dan Allender and Tremper Longman say our emotions are the cries of our soul, asking to be heard by God. Prayer is the window from our depths to God. To be whole, we should connect these parts of ourselves to God. But that’s hard! It’s not always easy or natural for us to do it. Why?

In this sermon, Pastor Joel uses the prophet Jeremiah to reflect on what it looks like for us to pray from our depths to God and examine ourselves for why we don’t always do it as well as we might hope, as well as the reflecting on the hope of who God is when we look at Jesus, and the invitation that it gives us. 

He Refreshes My Soul | Listening to the Shepherd

The Good Shepherd leads the sheep with his voice (John 10:27). But we can't hear the voice of the shepherd unless we engage in the practice of silence and solitude. Silence and solitude is a dialogue between your internal world and the Shepherd.

To do this practice, we need to cut out external and internal noise. Then, we sort through the clutter of our own internal world so that we may bring it to the Shepherd. This sounds simple, but it actually requires great intentionality from us. In this sermon, Pastor Joel breaks it all down.

He Refreshes My Soul | Why Bearing the Fruit of the Spirit Matters

God is a gardener, not just of creation but of people. He does everything a human gardener does for their own plants for us, wanting to see us be vital, healthy, and strong, and a healthy plant bears fruit. The series we’re in is about the wholeness that comes from being connected to the life-giving vine of Jesus, and Scripture tells us wholeness includes bearing fruit. Fruit like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, faithfulness or faith, hope, and more. These are supposed to make up the character and virtue of a Christian.

In this sermon Pastor Joel digs into this idea further. How does it grow? Why does it matter practically? What fruit are we to look for? How do we not just be content with the buds the Holy Spirit gives us but also become gardeners in ourselves to help the fruit grow strong? And why does this matter in a world that often sees unChristlike fruit grow from those who follow him?

He Refreshes My Soul | True Rest: Sabbath through Jesus

 In a frenetic, 24/7/365 world, there seems to hardly be any time to slow down, rest, or catch a break. We encounter Jesus of Nazareth who walked unhurried through one of the most anxious times of the ancient world. Instead, Jesus invites us to a subversive and ancient type of rest; one that seems to offer more than just a day-off, wellness plan, or life hack.

Sabbath becomes the defining practice and rehearsal for the New Heavens and New Earth. It invites us to celebrate, delight, rest, stop, and contemplate the Kingdom of God. In a busy world where many of us crave a deep soul-level type rest, it becomes crucial to examine the ways Jesus extends to us a path of restfulness rooted deeply in our identity. 

He Refreshes My Soul | Processing Grief and Trauma

To walk with the Good Shepherd, we have to surrender all of ourselves to Jesus, including our emotions and trauma. 

In this sermon, Julie talks about the things that prevent us from processing emotions with God, how Scripture tells us that emotions matter, and how God works through our pain and trauma to bring about new life in us. This is a really important one you don’t want to miss!

He Refreshes My Soul | How Hurry Kills Wholeness

When you read Psalm 23, conspicuously absent is any kind of rush. Shepherds take time to find the right spots to have their sheep graze and drink water, and sheep need time after to lay down and for their food to digest.

We will struggle with following the Good Shepherd when we allow ourselves to be swallowed up into the culture of speed, superficiality, and distraction we live in. It will kill our ability to walk with the shepherd. In this sermon, Pastor Joel explains how hurry kills our ability to walk with the shepherd and where to start in resisting its impact in our lives.

He Refreshes My Soul | The Good Shepherd

Psalm 23 is one of the most famous chapters in the whole Bible, but how well does it describe us? Think about the emotional, mental, and physical state of the sheep that are led by the Good Shepherd. In a word, they are whole.

 

But many of us don't feel wholeness, especially after these last two years. How do we find it? It's actually more simple than we might think: Wholeness is found by simply walking with the shepherd, letting him lead us.

In this sermon, kicking off Res City's winter/spring 2022 series, Pastor Joel talks about why we need wholeness through walking with the Good Shepherd, and plots the course this series, which will delve into it more deeply week by week, will take. 

Res City’s 3rd Birthday | Who We Are After 3 Years

Res City is 3 years old! And we totally anticipated what those years would look like when we planted....(yeah right!)

In this special sermon, we reflect on where we've come from, and who we are as we enter our fourth year by examining the 5 purposes of the church. Pastor Julie look at how we've lived out our vision, celebrate what God has done, and talks about where we're headed next.

Thank you for 3 years!!

Fueled By Grace | The Reign of Grace

In Romans 5:21 Paul uses an interesting phrase: “The reign on grace.” It’s something we’re all under when we accept the gift of God’s grace. What does it mean to be under this reign? It means to give ourselves over to God’s grace, and to let the abundance in us that grace creates spill out of us to others in generosity of time, skill, and attention.

In this sermon, Pastor Joel explains what Paul says in Romans about what it means for grace to reign in us, as we prepare to celebrate our commissioning Sunday.