Reality Church Vancouver Teachings Podcast

In this episode, we focus on the beatitude, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy,” where we're invited to honestly wrestle honestly with our resistance to mercy—how resentment, anger, envy, and scorekeeping quietly shape our relationships, especially with those closest to us. By tracing how Jesus defines and embodies mercy throughout Matthew's Gospel—and ultimately at the cross—we're invited to move beyond a transactional view of God and discover mercy not as sacrifice or divine bookkeeping, but as God's covenant love in action. The question at the center is both personal and practical: Have we truly received mercy—and what would it look like to become people who live it? Recorded February 22, 2026.

In this episode, we explore Jesus' words, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled,” and wrestle with what that means in a world that often feels anything but right. Moving through the Sermon on the Mount and into the season of Lent, we unpack righteousness as right relationship — with God, others, and creation — while honestly naming our longing for justice, peace, and restoration. This is an invitation to live in the tension of the “now but not yet” kingdom, learning to practice hope, lament, and faithful presence as a community shaped by Jesus. Recorded February 15, 2026.

In this teaching, we explore what Jesus really meant when he said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Rather than describing personality traits like being quiet or gentle, Jesus is pointing to a specific group in the biblical story—the aniy—the poor, powerless, and overlooked who refused both violent revolt and cultural assimilation, choosing instead to wait on God for justice and restoration. This message challenges us to stop reshaping Jesus into a guide for achieving our version of the good life, and instead invites us to see, listen to, and serve those on the margins, while learning from their posture of dependence, hope, and faithful waiting. Ultimately, the Beatitude points us to Jesus himself, who embodied this way of life and invites us into a kingdom built not through power or comfort, but through trust, sacrifice, and renewal. Recorded February 8, 2026.

In this episode, we continue our journey through the Beatitudes, exploring how Jesus reshapes common sense and redefines what the “good life” looks like in the light of God's kingdom. Mourning doesn't sound like blessing, and comfort doesn't look like quick relief—but Jesus invites us into the mystery that God is not absent from grief, lament, or loss. Instead, these places become unexpected meeting grounds with the living God, where the Comforter draws near in presence and power. This sermon reflects on everyday grief, deep loss, and honest lament, and asks what it might mean to recognize kingdom life unfolding not in triumph or improvement, but in the tears we dare to bring to God. Recorded February 1, 2026.

Jesus opens the Sermon on the Mount by announcing that the kingdom of heaven is already here—and by redefining who is truly flourishing. The Beatitudes begin with Jesus' proclamation, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” which challenges our cultural obsession with control, success, and accumulation. Drawing on Hartmut Rosa's idea of resonance, this sermon invites us to see powerlessness not as failure, but as a posture that opens us to receive God's kingdom and a different way of being human. Recorded January 25, 2026.

In this sermon, we continue our introduction to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, centering on the Beatitudes, which challenges our deeply held assumptions about “the good life” and who we consider truly blessed. Jesus reframes flourishing away from power, comfort, and status, and toward humility, mercy, peacemaking, and dependence on God. What emerges is an invitation to repentance—not as guilt or shame, but as a reorientation of our imagination—turning from the stories our culture tells about success and happiness, and learning to see life, blessing, and human flourishing through the revolutionary vision of Jesus. Recorded January 19, 2026.

We're starting a new series and a new season by returning to the story of Jesus—the one the whole Bible has been pointing toward. In this message, we begin exploring the Gospel of Matthew and Jesus' surprising announcement: “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Rather than an escape from earth to heaven, Jesus proclaims good news about heaven breaking into earth right now. This series invites us to see Jesus more clearly and to consider what it means to follow him as God's kingdom takes shape here and now. Recorded January 11, 2026.

Our world is crying out for help—through violence, disaster, exhaustion, and deep loneliness. We're told to fix ourselves, push harder, and start over, but those promises rarely deliver. In this message, we turn to Jesus' familiar story in Luke 15 to explore how God responds to the prayers of his people, and how discipleship looks different in different seasons of life as God meets us exactly where we are. Recorded January 4, 2026.

In this final message of our series on identity, we return to the pivotal moment in Moses' life—the encounter at the burning bush. Throughout this series, we've traced a recurring pattern in Moses' story: a deep identity longing, an attempted solution that fails, an encounter with God, and a newly formed identity rooted not in self-definition but in God's self-revelation. Today, we slow down at the turning point of that pattern. As God names himself, calls Moses by name, and sends him into God's larger story, we're invited to reconsider how identity is formed—not as a solitary monologue, but through dialogue with God and within community. Together, we ask the question Moses asks, “Who am I?”, and discover how that question is finally answered in encounter with the God who says, “I will be with you.” Recorded December 21, 2025.

In this sermon, we continue our series on Moses and the question of identity, focusing on one of the most relatable moments in his story—failure, exile, and deep disappointment. Moses longs for the same things we do: belonging, purpose, justice, blessing, and a life that matters, yet every attempt he makes to secure those things falls apart, yet, it's in that place of discouragement and “not enoughness” that God meets him at the burning bush, revealing himself as a God of grace who moves toward failure, promises his presence, and still calls broken people to participate in his work. This sermon explores what changed Moses, and what his encounter with God might teach us about moving from fear and disillusionment toward faith. Recorded December 14, 2025.

In this message, we continue our exploration of the theme of justice: two weeks ago, we considered justice through the courage of the women in Exodus 1–2; today, we shift to Moses' adult life and the tension between his deep, God-given passion for justice and the misguided, self-driven ways he first tries to pursue it. This passage leads us to a bigger question: how does an encounter with God transform our approach to injustice—from personal mission to divine calling? Join us as we look at Exodus 2 and 3 and discover what it means to join God's work of true liberation in the world. Recorded December 7, 2025.

In Exodus 2:15–22, we meet Moses in a season of dislocation—fleeing Egypt, finding refuge in Midian, starting a family, and naming his son Gershom, “a foreigner in a foreign land.” This moment opens a deeper question the passage raises for us today: What does it mean to leave a legacy? Not a legacy of success, achievement, or family status, but a legacy shaped by the ongoing work of God in a life that is still in process. Recorded November 30, 2025.

In today's episode, we continue our series on identity through the early life of Moses, turning to one of the most urgent themes in the Exodus story: justice—what it means to “take on Pharaoh.” Exodus 1–2 opens with God blessing Israel in a foreign land, a picture of flourishing that echoes a new garden. But that blessing provokes fear in a new Pharaoh, who twists power into oppression, slavery, and eventually genocide. In the face of this darkness, the story lifts up an unexpected group of heroes: the Hebrew midwives, Moses' mother and sister, and even Pharaoh's daughter—women who quietly but courageously resist injustice at great personal cost. Their actions flow from a deeper allegiance, a reverence for God that redefines justice and dethrones Pharaoh's claims over their lives. Today we explore what their example reveals about seeing oppression truthfully, resisting the cultural temptation to center justice on our own personal fulfillment, and practicing courageous, creative faithfulness right where we already are. This is the invitation of Exodus: to worship the God who is above every Pharaoh, and to join him in the work of life, liberation, and flourishing. Recorded November 23, 2025.

This week, we look even further back in Moses' origin story at the courage of Shiphrah and Puah, a desperate mother, Miriam's boldness, and Pharaoh's daughter's compassion - and the way God responds to lament long before they see deliverance. We explore lament as a true form of worship—honest, raw, and welcomed by God—and how the Bible always pairs lament with hope. Psalm 77 becomes our guide, reminding us to anchor our questions in God's past faithfulness and, ultimately, in the resurrection of Jesus. Recorded November 16, 2025.

In this episode, we continue exploring Moses' origin story in Exodus and the question at the core of his life—Who am I? Today we go deeper to the longing beneath it: Who is my father? From a name shaped by rescue and rupture to a life searching for belonging, Moses carries a story many of us recognize—a "father hunger" to be known, chosen, and loved. At the burning bush, God meets Moses not just with answers, but with Himself—the Father who pursues, names, invites, and restores. It's a story about identity, longing, and the God who comes close, calls us His own, and sends us out to love others the same way. Recorded November 9, 2025.

In this week's message, we continue our series on Moses' question, “Who am I?” by exploring the theme of belonging. Moses' story reveals the tension of hybrid identity—born Hebrew, raised Egyptian, caught between race, culture, and place—and his failed attempts to resolve that tension by choosing sides and defining himself against others. But when God meets Moses in the wilderness and declares, “I AM WHO I AM,” Moses' sense of belonging is redefined—not by ancestry or geography, but by encounter and worship. In the same way, our deepest belonging is not found in race, culture, or place, but in knowing the God who meets us where we are and sends us into the world as His people. Recorded November 2, 2025.

This week, we explore the question “Am I what I do?” and the pressure many of us feel to find meaning and identity in our work. Looking at Moses in Exodus 2–3, we see someone who longed to make a difference but discovered that vocation is not driven by personal willpower or achievement. God meets Moses in the ordinary and calls him first to be a responder, then a participant in God's work to bring freedom and renewal. Our careers and roles will change, but our true identity is rooted in the God who calls us, equips us, and sends us to join his healing work in the world. Recorded October 26, 2025.

This week we begin a new series based on Moses' question in Exodus 3:11 - "Who am I?" While previous cultures answered this question by looking outside of ourselves, our culture answers it by inviting us to look inside of ourselves. However, in this message, we see how Moses' encounter with God reveals a better way—our true identity is found not in who we are, but in who God is: the great I AM. Recorded October 19, 2025.

In this message, the two responses to the good news of Jesus in the book of Acts. First, Peter invites his listeners to "repent and be baptized" as an entrance practice into a community of the good news. Second, we learn how the early church took on common practices that continually shaped them to become people who looked like Jesus - and how we're invited to do the same. Recorded October 12, 2025.

This week, we were blessed to have Carl Amouzou lead us to reflect on the story of Mary and Martha, and the challenge we all face between being distracted and being present. Through personal stories of busyness, shame, and the struggle to rest, we're invited to hear Jesus' gentle words: You are seen, you are loved, and you are called to choose the better part—the way of presence with Him. If you've been feeling anxious, pulled in many directions, or worn thin, this sermon offers a reminder that Jesus' invitation is not to do more, but to be with Him and find rest. Recorded September 28, 2025.

This week we begin to explore the early church's practices in Acts 2, focusing on the surprising emphasis on eating together. Communion reminds us that Jesus' broken body and poured-out blood re-story our lives, but the table doesn't stop there. We're invited to come to the table, carry it into our homes, and extend it into the world—sharing the good news of Jesus through relationships around tables. Recorded September 21, 2025.

This week we're kicking off a new series on who we are as a church, starting with our name: Reality Church. Drawing from Colossians 2:17, we explore how all the identity markers we chase—success, approval, belonging—are just shadows, whereas true identity and lasting fulfillment are found only in Jesus, the one who is reality. Recorded September 14, 2025.

We finish our summer series looking at Psalm 32, which reminds us that God doesn't watch us with judgment but with love. Hiding our struggles only wears us down, but freedom comes when we bring our whole selves—sins, wounds, and weariness—into God's presence. Like the woman who reached out to Jesus in faith, we find blessing when we stop hiding and let his unfailing love surround us. Recorded September 7, 2025.

In Psalm 84 we hear the psalmist's passionate cry: “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.” But what does that mean for us when our hearts often long for “a thousand elsewheres” — vacations, success, comfort — more than the presence of God? This sermon explores that tension honestly, naming how we can sometimes sing worship songs without fully meaning the words. The psalm reminds us that the Christian life isn't just about avoiding sin or “sin management,” but about entering into the presence of the living God — the place where healing, wholeness, and true life are found. Like choosing between cities or destinations, what we think is “better” is shaped by the stories and songs that capture our imagination. Marketing trains us to long for other things, but Psalm 84 invites us to retrain our hearts to long for God through worship, community, and pilgrimage with Jesus. In him, we discover that God's presence is the ultimate “stuff” our souls were made for. Recorded August 24, 2025.

This week, we explore Psalm 72 which teaches us to long for a king who brings justice and shalom—peace, wholeness, and flourishing. This hope is fulfilled in Jesus, the greater King who defends the vulnerable, heals the broken, and confronts injustice with sacrificial love. As His followers, we're invited to pray, see others with His eyes, and live out justice and mercy so that God's kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven. Recorded August 17, 2025.

Psalm 24 calls us to meet the majestic Creator with clean hands and pure hearts. Revival begins not with programs or crowds, but with holy discontent and God's people being filled with Him. Transformation starts when we let Him cleanse our actions, motives, and allegiances. Where do we long for God to arrive, and how are we preparing? True revival is a community becoming deeply God-conscious—starting when we open our lives to the King of Glory. Recorded August 10, 2025.

Psalm 127 reminds us that without God's presence, even our hardest work can become empty toil. This sermon invites us to see all we do—whether in jobs, homes, relationships, or ministry—as “kingdom work,” joining God's ongoing activity to bring life, hope, and flourishing in places big and small. Recorded August 3, 2025.

In her first sermon ever (!), one of our church elders, Christiane, reflects on Psalm 63 and what it means to long for and find satisfaction in God. Through honest storytelling and spiritual insight, she explores how our deepest desires point us toward God—and how Scripture and simple practices can help us meet Him in everyday life. Recorded July 20, 2025.

We continue our study of the Psalms this summer by looking Psalm 121. In this teaching, we explore how mountains are a place of significance, how mountains reinforce our identity, and hear the invitation to ascend the mountain with King Jesus. Recorded July 13, 2025.

Psalm 8 invites us into a posture of worship by recognizing God as the majestic Creator and King over all. Whether we feel powerful or powerless, the Psalm reminds us that everyone worships something—and only worship of God leads to life, not destruction. As we enter summer, this message encourages us to enjoy beauty, rest, and connection, but to do so with intentionality—seeing every moment as an opportunity to turn our hearts toward God in worship, just as Jesus did in both his strength and vulnerability. Recorded July 6, 2025.

In this final message of the Open to the Spirit series, we're invited as a community into a “guided invitation”—a gentle, hopeful call to open ourselves more deeply to the Spirit's presence, power, and person. With heartfelt thanks for all who have been using their gifts—serving, teaching, encouraging, creating, and leading—the message names the beauty of what God is already doing among us. At the same time, it honestly acknowledges the fears many of us carry: fear of change, of losing control, or of what others might think. Rather than pushing past these struggles, we're invited to bring them into the light—trusting that the Spirit leads us not through shame, but through love. Whether you're eager to leap forward or still feeling hesitant, this is a call to walk together—slowly, patiently, and bravely—as we become the kind of Spirit-led community we long to be. Recorded June 22, 2025.

As we begin to close our discernment on being Open to the Spirit, this sermon encourages us to embrace the Spirit's guidance and power by trusting God in our hesitations, supporting one another's gifts, and growing together in love. Using Ephesians 4 and the image of a fishing reel, it highlights the tension between human effort and divine strength as necessary for spiritual maturity and unity. Recorded June 15, 2025.

In this teaching, we explore the fivefold ministry gifts described in Ephesians 4—Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd, and Teacher—often referred to as APEST - which are given to the church to equip believers and build up the body of Christ. We look at the unique function and heart of each gift, how they worked together in the early church, and how they might be expressed in our communities today. Re-recorded June 9, 2025.

This week's sermon explores the Power Gifts—a category of spiritual gifts meant to tangibly demonstrate that God is real, active, and present. Rooted in 1 Corinthians 12, the message invites listeners to consider how we might be open to God's “supernatural” work in our lives and church, despite modern skepticism. Apologies - the first minute of the recording was cut out. Recorded June 1, 2025.

In this teaching, we're diving into the category of spiritual gifts called the “word gifts": teaching, encouraging / exhorting, evangelism and prophecy. In this season of discerning how to be Open to the Spirit, we invite you to ask yourself: What's He stirring in me? And am I willing to say yes, even if it feels uncomfortable? Recorded May 25, 2025.

As we continue exploring how to remain open to the Spirit, we turn our focus to one of the major themes of the Holy Spirit's work in the Bible: spiritual gifts. This week, we're looking specifically at the gifts that fall under the “love” category, with the hope of learning about them, celebrating them, and encouraging their use within our community. Recorded on May 18, 2025.

This week, we wrap up the introduction to our Open to the Spirit series by exploring a crucial question: How can we tell when the Holy Spirit is at work—in us and in our church? The teaching unpacks four key markers of the Spirit's activity: love, hope and faith, the building up of community, and a Spirit-led unity. These goals and guidelines help us stay grounded as we learn to live more open to God's presence and power. Recorded May 11, 2025.

This week, we look at the challenge and example of Holy Spirit's presence and power in the early church in Acts and discuss some barriers to the Holy Spirit's ministry in our community. Recorded May 4, 2025.

As we transition into a new season in the church calendar and a new sermon series, we ask why we don't experience Jesus' death and resurrection as good news - and how we can. Recorded April 27, 2025.

As we close our series exploring the question, "Why did Jesus have to die?" in the gospel of Mark, we look at the good news exclaimed to the women at the tomb, "If you're looking for Jesus, He is risen!" We hear how we are invited to receive the good news of the resurrection, practice the resurrection and keep company with the risen Jesus. Recorded April 20, 2025.

As we prepare to wrap our series, we recap the Gospel of Mark's answers to the question "Why Jesus had to die?" and look at some practical tips and vision for being witnesses to the good news of Jesus. Recorded April 13, 2025.

This week, we continue examining Jesus's transformation of the Passover meal in Mark 14. The disciples, and us by extension, face real barriers to following Jesus into a changed life but are invited to share about these barriers and look to Jesus' leadership to receive Jesus' invitation to change. Recorded April 6, 2025.

This week, we explore another answer from Mark's gospel to the question "Why did Jesus have to die?". By aligning his death within the story and practice of Passover, Jesus envisions his death as a new covenant declaration calling God's people to come into the family of God and imitate God for the sake of the world. Recorded March 30, 2025.

This week, Tim Dickau, from St. Andrew's College and Citygate, reflects on what it means that we live in “A Secular Age”. Building of Charles Taylor's seminal work and Paul's letter to the Romans, we gain hope and inspiration for living and sharing the good news in our cultural moment. Recorded March 16, 2025.

This week, we continue in our exploration of Jesus as Isaiah's suffering servant. Jesus sees his suffering, death and resurrection as being our representative in God's larger story as an invitation to come to him with our suffering and go to those who are suffering. Recorded March 9, 2025.

This week, we are led by Regent College faculty, Dr. Rikk Watts, to look at Mark's portrayal of Jesus as the Suffering Servant foretold in Isaiah. In light of these passages (Isaiah 40, 52-54), Jesus' death is not an accident but part of God's radical response to broken covenant and covenant partners. Recorded March 2, 2025.

What does a journey towards Jesus look like? Building off the book "I Once Was Lost" and Jesus' parable in Mark 4, we consider how we might be faithful partners with God and our friends in the process towards Jesus. Recorded February 23, 2025.

Last week, we looked at how Jesus' death makes God's uncontrollable presence available to the world. In this teaching, we continue to explore this theme learning how to experience God's presence and that God's presence goes ahead of us in witness. Recorded February 16, 2025.

This teaching marks the beginning of our second "cycle" through the gospel of Mark asking the question, "Why did Jesus have to die?" In this teaching, we explore the themes of Jesus' baptism and the temple curtain, and how Jesus' death opens up the presence of God for all people. Recorded February 9, 2025.

In this teaching, we go backward to remind ourselves of how Jesus uses language to shape His ministry and how we, as witnesses, are invited to enter and live Jesus' story and develop language to share about Jesus with those around us. Recorded February 2, 2025.