Resurrection City Church - St. Paul Minnesota

In John 15, Jesus outlines his vision for who we would become: Healthy vines, bearing much fruit and thriving. But he points out that this is only possible if we're abiding in him. To abide means to be connected to him, in his presence. So far in Genesis we've been studying how, to put it in the language of Genesis 11, people are moving further and further away from God by moving further and further east from Eden. In this final story we're studying in Genesis before taking a break we see a group of people engage in a great project, a tower, for their own fame, living apart from God and his purposes for humanity. This was possible only because of a technological innovation, we learn. Thus, the story invites us to ask a similar question: How are we using technology to live distanced from God, and not abiding in Jesus? In this message, Pastor Joel unpacks how our phones can help us to live as if we need nothing else, and how they can sometimes create a shallow faith when we try to use them as our primary portals for abiding in Jesus.

In this message, Pastor Julie concludes the story of the flood, looking at how the message of the rainbow that God places in the sky reminds us of the persistent grace of God despite our cycles of sin.

We all hate consequences and will sometimes go to drastic lengths to avoid them. In the story of Genesis we've seen humanity turn its back on God, choosing to trust the lie that God is holding out on them and we ought to do it their own way. So far, there haven't been major consequences as God's grace has continued to care for people and allow humanity to spread doing life as they see fit. In the flood story, however, we see that change. If you grew up in church there's a decent chance you studied the story of Noah's Ark in the way children's bibles often portray it: an all-inclusive petting zoo boat cruise floating happily along in the sunshine. But when you really read the story it's obvious that's not what's going on. The ark was a survival pod, where the small group of survivors of a cataclysmic natural disaster were crammed together for almost a year, simply hoping to preserve society after it had been totally wiped out. And the seriousness of the actual story is directly tied to the seriousness of what caused it: human wickedness and sin. The flood is the inescapable result of consequences. In this message, Pastor Joel explains how the story of Noah's ark shows us that there's always some flood that follows sin, and that in fact sin degrades even our literal material world, making it fall apart. The good news, however, is that we have an ark of our own, Jesus. And when we put ourselves in the safety of Jesus we find ourselves made new and invite floods of the Spirit's power and blessing on ourselves.

The Bible assumes that Christians are part of a war. The pastor and writer Paul says things like:  “Fight the good fight of the faith.”  “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes”  “Fight the battle well.” “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but…against spiritual forces of evil”  “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world,”  “Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus” The assumption is there is a conflict going on that is not always perceptible to our eyes but still very real, and that we're swallowed up into it whether we like it or not. In Genesis we get some of the origins of this battle between God and spiritual beings who did what Adam and Eve did: they believed a lie and rebelled against God because of it. All of this leads to a strange story in Genesis 6 about sons of God, daughters of men, and some weird kids called Nephilim. In this message, Pastor Joel explains what's going on and how it tells us more about our own involvement in the spiritual warfare of being a disciple of Jesus.

“A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth can tie its shoes.” This old adage continues to show its truth in an age of misinformation and AI deepfakes. Ironically, the saying itself is attributed to Mark Twain, despite there being no evidence the famous American writer ever said it!  Something like this is what happens in the wake of Genesis 3 as the book of Genesis continues on from the story of humanity's tragic fall. In Genesis 3, we see humans begin to believe a lie implanted into their minds by Satan. We saw what happened to the first couple of people who believed it, and it's safe to say that it wasn't pretty. But what does it look like when this lie goes viral? When it starts to be believed and lived at a large scale? When it becomes the default way of thinking and viewing the world for all people? It's the question the next few chapters of Genesis seeks to answer, and in this study we're going to see how the next generation of humans have some ugly consequences from the lie's spread. While this is a grim story, it also is filled with signs of hope and comfort, too, because it foreshadows the gospel if we know where to look.

Do you have a moment where you felt like something important in your life all went wrong? Something that seemed like the right call in the moment but now in hindsight was a mistake, maybe a terrible one, and which can't be undone? The story of the Bible has a moment like this, and it comes in Genesis 3. The first three chapters of Genesis, in fact, could be called something like “The Rise and Fall of Humanity.” It's the story of a crisis, a tragedy. It might seem like something that happened a long time ago and which doesn't have anything to do with us. But it's all of our story. We all have “at the tree” moments, where we have a choice to make. Will we trust God with our happiness and future or will distrust him and choose to trust ourselves instead? It's the story of a man who cheats on his wife. Of the city official who embezzles thousands of dollar. The teen who throws her friends under the bus to join the cool kids in school and stains her soul with guilt. The banker who thinks ethics don't apply to them and breaks all the rules. Of the influencer who edits every photo and every moment until she can't remember who she is when the camera is off. Of the college student who posts what will get likes instead of what he actually believes. When we realize this the story comes alive and in this message Pastor Joel walks through Genesis 3 shedding light on how it's all of our story. Like our own stories of sin, it's a tragedy, but it also is a story of hope. Hope of a tender and forgiving God who says to us at our lowest, “It'll be ok. I'll fix what's been broken. I'll fix it all.”

Psalm 8 is a reflection on the beginning of Genesis, on our call to reign as God's image bearers. But it also reflects on a major tension we feel as we try to live it out, too. Verses 4-6 goes like this: “ What are mere mortals that you (God) should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority…” It almost feels like the writer has imposter syndrome. How can people like me—filled with all the flaws and limits and quirks we all have—really do this? That kind of sentiment can keep us on the sidelines and from really becoming who God has made us to be. Genesis 2 reflects on this tension by explaining two ways God meets us in our limitations: Sabbath to meet our emotional, physical, and mental needs, and other people to help us in our aloneness. The truth is, the more we learn to depend on God and what he's given us, the better we can be at being human and fulfilling the calling God made us all with. In this message, Pastor Joel explains it all.

Genesis 1 explains that to be human means to reign or govern the world alongside God. We each have a domain, a realm that is uniquely our own and where our will is the (or at least a) dominant one. On July 19th Res City did our Together Weekend Sunday, where we don't have a typical sermon but split the church into breakouts and this year we did four breakouts on this theme. In this breakout, Lisa Trump, Nicole Rohrer, and Catie Heen lead a discussion around how to reign well in the most basic part of us but which we're still called to steward responsibly: our mental health and thought life.

Genesis 1 explains that to be human means to reign or govern the world alongside God. We each have a domain, a realm that is uniquely our own and where our will is the (or at least a) dominant one. On July 19th Res City did our Together Weekend Sunday, where we don't have a typical sermon but split the church into breakouts and this year we did four breakouts on this theme. In this breakout, Joel Stegman leads a discussion around how to reign well in a world more and more saturated with a rapidly growing technology that is becoming a part of many parts of all of our lives, artificial intelligence. 

Genesis 1 explains that to be human means to reign or govern the world alongside God. We each have a domain, a realm that is uniquely our own and where our will is the (or at least a) dominant one. On July 19th Res City did our Together Weekend Sunday, where we don't have a typical sermon but split the church into breakouts and this year we did four breakouts on this theme. In this breakout, Heather Lehn leads a discussion around how to reign well in the creation itself, a really important space to think about this concept because the first humans were literally tasked with it.

Genesis 1 explains that to be human means to reign or govern the world alongside God. We each have a domain, a realm that is uniquely our own and where our will is the (or at least a) dominant one. On July 19th Res City did our Together Weekend Sunday, where we don't have a typical sermon but split the church into breakouts and this year we did four breakouts on this theme. In this one, Drew Elrick leads a discussion around how to reign well in our places of work, or vocation.

“The future of the church is ancient.” What a surprising thing to believe, but the reality is God has given us all we need to navigate even the thorniest of issues we encounter. In a new series, we'll be studying the oldest book in the Bible, Genesis. Genesis is the beginning of the lore, the founding myth, of all humanity, whether or not we, going about our day to day lives now, centuries removed from its stories and characters, are aware of it or not. The Bible begins by explaining how God has made the world to be the kind of place where humans can be who he made us to be. That's what Genesis 1 is all about. In this message, Pastor Joel unpacks how the world was initially made to be that kind of place, and how it continues to be even now.

It seems fitting for us to end our series on things Christians believe that make us weird with a message about the end of the world. End times fever has been common among Christians, especially over the last 50 or so years. But what did Jesus tell us about our speculation about the when or what of his return? Why might he have worried we would get too focused on it? In this message, Pastor Joel shares some of his childhood trauma around the end times, his personal opinions on the return of Jesus and talks about why it does matter that we hold tight to the expectation that Jesus return but not at the expense of what Jesus told us to keep our primary focus on.

Christians talk a lot about God's grace, but we less often talk about what is sometimes called the scandal of grace. When we really get the concept of grace, we're going to actually be offended. It steps on the toes of what we think is right or wrong. For people who are used at deserving or achieving all they get, grace can be a real stumbling block, and our ego can even convince us to say no to it. In this message, using 2 Kings 5 and the story of a highly competent, rich and well-connected general named Naaman who desperately was looking for a cure for his leprosy, Pastor Joel explains why grace challenges the deeply held beliefs we have about ourselves, and how in allowing it to offend us God is actually trying to heal us of a spiritual disease we all have. It's a spiritual leprosy, we could call it, using the story of Naaman as an allegory for our sinful arrogance. This is a message for everyone, but especially those who really struggle with perfectionism and achievement.

This might surprise you, but when Jesus talked about sex he said the conservative hardliners of his day actually didn't go far enough. For many in his day, as long as you jusrt had sex with your spouse, you were good. Jesus said that true righteousness went a lot deeper than that. Just being good at following rules doesn't produce the kind of goodness God's kingdom is meant to bring. Goodness in sex isn't tied to rules at all, even the golden rule of sex we have today: consent. Jesus would say the kinds of things we all know are wrong when it comes to sex (things like assault and rape) come from the heart, which means we have to go after lust itself. This is a problem for today's world. Lust is normal and celebrated, and we treat sex like it's ice cream: it's all good, there's no such thing as morally bad ice cream, and everyone just has their own specific tastes. We tell ourselves this view of sex is good and represents progress from the backwards ideas about sex people like Jesus had. But the question we never really ask is this: Is this making us better people? More loving people? Or even happier people? If we're really honest, the answer is no. And this brings us back to what Jesus says. In this message, Pastor Joel helps explain how the sexual revolution overpromised and underdelivered, and how by targeting lust itself Jesus gives what our craving for lust is really all about at the end of the day: real, true intimacy.

Perhaps the defining question of our age is who am I? We are asking what it means to be human now in the age of AI, and we are all asking questions like what gives me value? What is my purpose? Why am I worthy of love, of being known? How can I help bless the world? What will make me feel fulfilled, at peace, truly happy? God thinks answering this question is incredibly important. So important that he put the answer right on page 1 of our Bibles, in the book of Genesis. The answer he gives there to us is that we are image bearers who are made to rule and reign over the world alongside him. What does it mean to reign? Perhaps a more helpful word is responsibility. We are made to exercise responsibility for ‘what we have say over', our ‘domain.' What we have say over includes many things, like our bodies, our time, what we think about, what we steward, our relationships, our churches, and more. But there's a massive problem: Sin. Sin takes our responsibility from us and reigns through us when we try to domineer other people's domains or neglect our own. Both are chronic issues among people, things that if we're honest we do more than we'd care to admit. But God has not left us hanging. Jesus's domain is humans themselves: to take them and make them into the kind of people who can do this, by putting their identity in him. In this timely message, Pastor Joel breaks it all down for us.

There's a common idea of how it takes a village to raise or support someone. A village is a great way to think of what the church, the community of the people of Jesus, is. But what does it actually take to be part of a village? It's harder to know than we might think, and even when we do know it can be even more difficult to actually live it. In a time when people are so lonely and desperately need to be part of the community of Jesus, learning better what Scripture says about how to be a villager is increasingly relevant. In this message, Pastor Julie shares some practical, insightful, and challenging suggestions for how you can be a villager at Res City.

We value independence, a lot. And independence might give us a lot of things we want, but will independence really help us grow as people, especially the people of God? In this message, Pastor Julie explains why we only grow when we rely on God, and accountability to each other is essential to how God helps us to become the people he is crafting us into.

Albert Einstein once said you don't understand something well enough until you can explain it simply. Something similar could be said about the gospel: you may not understand the good news of Jesus well enough if you don't see the necessity of unity and reconciliation. The good news is all about reconciliation: Jesus bringing us back from our rebellion and sin to God through the cross. The disciple, pastor, and writer in the early church Paul knew this, and he puts it this way: we have been given a ministry of reconciliation. What might it look like to take this seriously? In this message, Pastor Joel tells the story of Philemon and Onesimus, a slave and master whom Paul worked to reconcile across even the terrible chasm of slavery. For Paul, we find, reconciliation means hard work, and has to flow first out of Christlike character, which Paul describes in detail in another letter and which Pastor Joel practically walks through to close the message.

Vulnerability, being real, and authentic—these things are desired by many. We want to be vulnerable and live in the midst of vulnerable community. But we don't really know how, and it's much harder than we think. Christians believe the problem with vulnerability is our sin, which leads to shame, which breaks relationships. In this message, Pastor Julie explains how Jesus is the answer to our shame, which allows us to  repair relationships and be vulnerable in them. She also discusses the tragic consequences to living without vulnerability.

Jesus wants us to be salty—weird, unique, different in a good way for the good of our world, by offering it the special blessings of Jesus and the gospel. But there's a lot of reasons we could say that Christians aren't that weird, and one of the main ways has to do with politics. Many people have walked away from faith in Jesus at least in part because they hoped Christians would be different—and they weren't! How might we begin to look different? In this message, Pastor Joel explains how it all starts with whether or not we see Jesus and his teaching as actually having something to offer not just out political beliefs, but equally as importantly, the kinds of people we are in our politics. Specifically, Jesus talks about how we are not to be controlled by fear or give into anger, which breeds contempt. Fear and anger are both incredibly important compinents of American politics, and Pastor Joel offers some suggestions for weeding them out of how we participate in the politics of our time.

Have you ever noticed how many books and movies are about someone who lives what seems to be a dull life, but then discovers a world behind ours, filled with mystery, wonder, but that is also frightening and dangerous? It seems like we have a sense that the world might actually be like that, but we have been told for so long that is not the way the world actually is. Things that people used to call “demonic” are just the products of unfortunate circumstances and some chemical imbalances in the brain. But the Bible wants to let us in on a secret: our sense that there is some conflict beyond ours is right. It's what Christians call spiritual conflict. In this message, Pastor Joel takes us through a study of this world from multiple passages of Scripture. He gives us an introduction to Satan, the spiritual warlord and general of hordes of others diabolical spiritual forces. He explains how Satan has taken control of our world and we're all stuck in it, and—most importantly—he talks about where Jesus is operating in the midst of it all and how the good news of his death and resurrection is our deliverance from it all.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

It can be hard to hear God's voice when we don't know how he speaks. Lots of times people wonder if God is speaking through this or that voice or experience, but can't know for sure. In this message, Pastor Joel begins to talk about the six ways we see God speak in our Bibles, beginning with the first four, which we could call “supernatural” or “spectacular” means: Dreams/visions, an audible voice, a phenomenon and a voice, and a messenger (angel). He also talks about one way we should not be looking for God to speak to us—through our feelings or "vibes" about something.

Hearing God's voice is something Jesus tells us is possible for all of his sheep. But if we go into it with the wrong ideas about it, it can cause us to miss the voice of God and become frustrated and quit listening for it. In this message Pastor Joel walks through some guidelines (five of them, to be exact) to consider what will put us in a position to hear the voice of God well in our day to day lives. They have to do with the centrality of grace and God speaking, how God sorts out our hearts when he speaks, why we should be looking for God to speak to us in quieter ways rather than with bright, neon lights, and more.

In John 10 Jesus says that, “The shepherd of the sheep…calls his own sheep by name and leads them out…He goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice…I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me…My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” He's saying the normal expectation of being one of his sheep is that we hear and recognize his voice. The problem is, many serious and committed followers of Jesus live without the experience of regularly hearing his voice, and even if they do they might not have a good sense for recognizing it. And what a tragedy this is, because the voice of God has the ability to sort us out, fill us with vitality, put us on the right path, fortify us, give us patience, cut through lies we are believing, put us in our place (if that's we need) or lift us up (if that's what we need), and much more. It's the greatest force in the world, and it's how God intends to lead us to our destiny as Jesus followers. In this series, we're going to tackle what it looks like for John 10 to not be just a nice verse to put in a picture frame on our wall but to be a mantra we live every single day.

In this message, Pastor Julie reads the story of Mary and talks about how she relied on God's faithfulness throughout her journey to Jesus' birth. *Note: Due to some technical difficulties the first few minutes of the sermon are missing from this recording.

In the letter of 1 Peter, Peter writes that the prophets announced something glorious that is for our benefit and not theirs. They were speaking, of course, of the coming of Jesus. Do we really take it seriously that something glorious that other generations longed for is here? The prophets, if they were alive today, would tell us to “wake up!” They would tell us to not take it for granted. They would tell us to live as if the world has changed forever. In this message Pastor Joel gets us to consider how we might do that, specifically by cultivating joy this Christmas season.

John the Baptist had a unique calling. He came not to give people what they'd always wanted—the good news of Jesus—but to help people wait well for it. Which, if we're honest, is kind of weird. Why wait? What good would that be? That's probably what we think when we hear that. But if we can understand God's intention, we can begin to understand how necessary waiting actually is. John's ministry shows us two values in waiting: In waiting we hear God's voice, and in waiting God prepares us for what we're waiting for. In this message, Pastor Joel explains how we can learn from John how to celebrate advent this Christmas season, and how we can learn to wait well for Jesus to return one day, too.

Waiting is something nobody enjoys, but it's the essence of advent, and God works through it when we're intentional. In this message, Pastor Julie shares from the story of Abraham and Sarah. She talks about their long wait for a child and presents some takeaways for us to consider in our own seasons of waitings, both in this advent, and in any other time of waiting we might encounter.

When we go through trials and uncertainty, it can be easy to just focus on ourselves and the problems we face. But there can be and is more going on in these situations than we realize, and in 1 Peter 5, Peter, the apostle and friend of Jesus, wants to help us understand the bigger picture. The reality is, in the middle of our uncertainty and troubles there are two other important factors to consider. One of them is a hindrance and one of them is from God as a help. First, Peter talks about the hindrance, which is the devil himself, prowling around like a predator in search of a lunch to snap up, trying to capitalize on our uncertainties and trials by leading us into sin. Second he shares about the shepherd-leaders Jesus has called to care for and protect his people, humbly loving us to help us become more like Jesus. Both are important to understand in our uncertainty and troubles. In this message, Pastor Joel breaks both of them down.

Throughout this series we've been discussing what is reliable and can give us hope in an uncertain world. When we dig into the reasons Peter wrote this beautiful letter to the different churches who initially received it, what's clear is that pressure and persecution were the main source of the uncertainty they faced and why Peter wrote them. We may or may not experience pressure such as they did, but at some point all Christians are going to feel like a stranger in the world we live in. So what do we do when we experience this tension? How do we live in peace with our stranger identity? In this message, Pastor Joel walks through Peter's teaching.

We all are seeking “the good life,” whatever we mean by it. It might come as a surprise to us, but the Bible actually has quite a bit to say about the good life, and in this message we'll explore how Jesus defines “the good life” and how Peter expands on it in this passage.

In this message, Res City Leadership team member Krista Schroeder shares what God has been teaching her about how we can live as disciples in an uncertain world, especially in the middle of tragedy.

In this message from guest preacher Pastor Adaobi Nduka, we consider how God partners with or “uses” us, and asks us if God might want to do so right now in ways we might not expect!

In this message from guest preacher Pastor Adaobi Nduka, we discuss the importance of the names of God given in Scripture. Pastor Adaobi walks through the name El Roi, “the God who sees” and explains how this name gives us comfort when we need know God sees us.

In this message from guest preacher Joel Nelson, we study the little known but timeless story of Leah, someone who was not thought of very highly by the people around her—including her husband—for reasons that are all too common today, but who God saw and who was important to him. Joel explains how this passage comforts us by letting us know what God values even if we feel unimportant and unseen to the world around us.

In this message, Res City Leadership Team member Miles Trump talks about how, surprisingly, in uncertain times obedience can actually lead to us to find hope.

The letter of 1 Peter offers God's response to how to live and what to trust when the world feels uncertain. But sometimes even the word of God, which is what 1 Peter is, seems unreliable because of tricky passages. That's exactly what we study in today's message. Pastor Julie explains how to handle passages that seem uncomfortable to us by staying curious and trying to understand it according to several important principles rather than being swayed by the shallow takes on some of these passages we see online sometimes.

Peter starts his letter to the scattered exiles in ancient Turkey by giving a dependable identity. Identity helps people in the midst of their uncertainty and hopelessness. In the next part of the letter, Peter expands on their identity, telling them that they are holy, and out of their holy identity they are to live holy. Holy living honors Jesus, but it is dependable, too, able to see us through the trials and uncertainties of life. In this message, Pastor Joel unpacks Peter's description of holy, dependable living and gives the perfect example of someone living it out smack dab in the middle of suffering and uncertainty: Jesus himself.

The world we live in is full of uncertainty, whether in current events casting a shadow over our politics, the people in our lives who let us down, and more. For some, the hopelessness leads them to just focus on the present and try to have some fun to help them forget how hard it is. But simply numbing the pain is not the way of Jesus. In this series, we're going to study a letter written to a group of people living through uncertain times by the apostle Peter about where we can find hope and reliability in uncertain times. In this first message of the series, Pastor Joel explains how Peter unpacks our identity and inheritance as reasons to find calm in the chaos.