River of Life Church - St Joseph

This week is a standalone sermon based off of the declaration of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3. When faced with possible death at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the three of them refused to compromise their faith by bowing to a false idol; instead, they declared that "even if" God did not rescue them, they would stay faithful to him! This is a strong reminder that God has called us to...

This week we hear from a guest speaker: Sterling Steen. Sterling is the Next Steps Pastor at Bridgeview Church in Big Lake, MN. Part of his role at the church is to be the head of their discipleship systems and in this sermon, Sterling brings a great framework for understanding discipleship. The call of Christian discipleship is truly become like Christ rather than seeming good on the outside. He...

This week was Family Sunday at our location, so we took a week off from our Story of the Bible series and instead got to hear from Sephra our Kids Pastor! She brings a great word about how kids are a vital part of the mission of God because they were vital to Jesus. She challenges all of us to consider our mindsets when it comes to children and how we are all called to help bring kids closer to Je...

Our series about the story of the Bible continues on going over the major theme of the entire New Testament: what is the Church and what does it mean to be the Church in belief and practice? This is vitally important to us today because this it the age of history that we are living in today. Followers of Jesus all around the world ARE the Church, so we should all understand what that means and wha...

This week we move our series to the New Testament and talk about how Jesus is the answer to the entire story of the Bible. Before Jesus, the Old Testament ends with a hopeful look towards the future but everything is left unfinished. Then, in the New Testament, Jesus comes and fulfills the incredible promises of God. Everything Jesus does heals, fixes, and restores the story of history so that all...

Have you ever wondered what in the world was going on in the Old Testament prophetic books? Then this sermon is for you. This week we continue our series, Story of the Bible, and we finish out the story of the Old Testament by covering the prophetic books. These books have beautiful truths about who God is, what he wants to do in our world, and how he relates to us, but they can be notoriously dif...

This week we continue our Story of the Bible series by jumping into the poetic Wisdom Literature of the Bible. These books show us God’s good plan for how to live in every area of life and show that we have a God that cares about every part of our lives, not just “spiritual” things. He wants us to experience his goodness in every area. 

This week we continue our series talking about the Old Testament era where Israel was ruled by judges and then kings. This era covers the books of the Bible from Joshua - 2 Chronicles. Israel repeatedly goes through cycles of unfaithfulness to God, but he remains faithful to them. We talk about how we can learn from these cycles and how to avoid them in our spiritual lives. 

This week we continue in our series talking about the era of Moses in the Old Testament and focusing on the major themes: the Exodus and the Law. These are important biblical themes that help us understand what God does in our lives and what he is doing in throughout scripture. These can be notoriously difficult passages to read, so we also cover how to understand what you are reading when you are...

This week we continue in our Story of the Bible series talking about the conflict in the story: sin. We cover chapters 3-11 in Genesis as they lay out how humanity chooses to let sin into the story and how sin then gets out of control with humanity powerless to stop it. Only God can step into the story to fix it at this point. While that may seem like an ancient story, the truths of this still aff...

This week we continue our series about the story of the Bible by digging into the beginning: Genesis 1. The opening chapter of scripture is so monumental for understanding the rest of the story. Genesis 1 introduces the main character, launches the plot of the story, reveals the setting, and establishes themes that will be developed throughout scripture. Our understanding of this chapter is vital...

This week we launch into our summer series about the Story of the Bible. God's Word is meant to be a blessing to us, but many struggle with how to properly engage with it. The Bible is not meant to be a collection of one-liner or a simple rulebook for morality. It is telling a unified story about how God is redeeming the world and us included. When we understand the grand story of the Bible, we ca...

The is the final week of our Who We Are series. This week our main idea is this: "We are the Church always." We focus in on Ephesians 2:19-22 where Paul presents a great description of what the church should be, and it's much more than simply meeting together for a service once a week. We are meant to embody what it means to be the Church at all times, not just on Sunday mornings. When we embrace...

This week we are doing part two of being Shaped by the Spirit. In scripture, there are always clear markers of the Holy Spirit moving in individuals and in the church: the Fruit of the Spirit, spiritual gifts, and the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. If we are a church that is Shaped by the Spirit, then we will see all three of those things happening regularly in our congregation. We tackle each of tho...

This week we continue our series talking about the truth that we are shaped by the Spirit as a church. Every single part of the life of faith is enabled by God's Spirit moving in us and the same is true for our church as a whole. We can only do what we do because of the Holy Spirit's work. In this sermon we discuss who the Spirit is, what he does, and our part in being shaped by the Spirit. When w...

This week, Pastor Tyler was ill, so Tim Bueckers brought the word. He talks in this sermon about the love of God and how that love not only should shape our identity, but it should also empower us to be who God created us to be. With God's love serving as the foundation of who we are, how we think about ourselves, and how we live following God, we can know that we are secure in him! From that secu...

This week we continue in our series Who We Are by highlighting the truth that we radically follow Jesus. In our society today, the word "Christian" is throw around for many things and in some cases seems to have lost all meaning; however, that's not how it should be. To be a Christian means that a person is following Jesus. We talk about what that means to actually follow Jesus and how that is liv...

This week we continue our Who We Are series talking about having generational impact as a church.* We look at the death of Moses and how God allows him to see a vision for God's people that was bigger than what Moses or his generation could accomplish in their lifetimes. God always has a plan for generational impact for his Church, and we get to be a part of it now where we are at. The Church is f...

This week we continue in our Who We Are series talking about the idea that we serve a God that is infinitely more than we could ever ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:14-21). When we grasp the power of that idea, things change--especially how we live in our day-to-day lives. These verses contain a powerful truth that God is infinitely more than anything else that we could seek, accomplish, or follow. 

This week we begin a new series called Who We Are looking at the character and values of our church. We recently passed the two-year mark for our church being in existence! Now is the time to evaluate remind ourselves of who we are as a church and highlight where we are going. The topic for this week is that we absolutely need to be people of God's presence. His presence is what sets the church ap...

Happy Easter! This week we round out our On The Road series by celebrating the resurrection of Jesus and covering the story of him walking on the Road to Emmaus with two of his disciples. Jesus interrupts their story and brings new life and redemption to them in their place of difficulty. If the grave is empty, then we always have hope!

This week we look at the Triumphant Entry of Jesus.** In that story, people celebrate Jesus and his next three major actions are to cry, curse a tree, and flip tables in the Temple. What caused Jesus to have that reaction? We look to answer that question and figure out how we can apply the truths of these scriptures to our lives. (Hint: Jesus cares more about our hearts than our outward actions.) ...

This week we start a new series called On The Road with Jesus where we will take a few stories of Jesus traveling on different roads and what we can learn from them. This first sermon keys in on a man named Jairus who desperately needed a miracle from Jesus, but who also found himself seeing his faith tested on the road to his miracle. This story is a strong reminder that sometimes there are mirac...

This week we round out our Fighter series talking about the story of the Good Samaritan and how this highlights what we should do to fight for the Kingdom of God. This is a powerful story that highlights that God often uses "neighbors" to change the world rather than those who are powerful or influential. That's great news for us because all of us are neighbors already! We all have the opportunity...

This week we have a guest speaker, Tim Bueckers, who is an awesome member of our church! Tim talks about what it means to truly trust God in the world that we are faced with today. How do we trust God in all things, even when the world is going crazy? It starts with us truly leaning on God rather than leaning on our own strength, skills, understanding, or perspectives. When we understand that, it...