Christ City Cast

What do we do with the long middle, after the old life has been leveled and before anything new has come? In Isaiah 39, King Hezekiah shows the envoys of Babylon everything in his storehouses, then hears that all of it will be carried away. He calls the word good, because there will be peace in his own days. As we prepare for Advent, we are listening to the prophetic words of Isaiah, which bring u...

How do I hope for God to judge all the world's evil, wickedness, and sin-twisted corruption when I, myself, am implicated in that very judgement? As we prepare for Advent, we turn to the prophet Isaiah, who announces the counterintuitive truth that God's promises of peace arrive through and in the midst of His judgment. The city that once sheltered justice, Jerusalem, has abandoned the wid...

How do we look honestly at ourselves--recognizing both the content and intent of each affection, attention, and action--with unflinching courage and compassion, without turning confession, contrition, and prayer into just another bit of performative, introspective, religious theatre? Especially, when we consider the fact that we are called saints before we have finished becoming saints--certainly...

What does listening to God have to do with the body you live in, the work you do, and the people you find difficult to hear? Our name, saints, is both a gift and a task: we are, thus, set apart in Christ and called to become who we have been named, together. By Simple Saints, we refer to simplicity as the harmony of our whole selves: spirit, soul, and body receiving and sharing in the life God giv...

If one day our bodies will be raised anew in, with, and by Jesus, what does that say about how we live in them now? Our bodies tire, ache, deteriorate, and change. The Christian faith names that honestly (perhaps, sometimes even emphasizes our physical and spiritual vulnerability a little too much). Still, historically, Jesus people have always held that the body that is wasting away is also the b...

Our bodies wear down, but our inner life can be renewed day by day. In Simply Soulful, we turned to 2 Corinthians 4:13 and ask what it means to attend to both the soul God is renewing and to God, through the ordinary practices of the Examen, contemplation and conversation, shared devotion, and Sabbath. Reflection Questions: Where, when, and in what circumstances have you experienced soul satisfact...

What does it mean to be "spiritual?" What is the difference between spirit and soul? This week we consider Paul's prayer that our whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless. Our life does not begin with us. We receive life from God, and we grow into that life through repentance, confession, listening, attention, and worship. This is not a call to escape ordinary life. It is an in...

How do you stay whole even as contemporary life pulls you in different directions? Saint Paul calls the church "saints": people made holy in Christ, set apart, and called to grow into that gift of holiness... together. In the second message of our fall series, Simple Saints , we consider how God's own undivided life gives shape to that calling. Drawing on divine simplicity—the harmon...

What's in a name? Really? The first message from our Simple Saints series begins by gathering the 'fruit' of our summer in James. James ends his letter calling us to speak life over one another, to draw one another into life — which is another way of saying: live into who you are and who's you are... Live into your family name. So... what is our family name? You might be thinking &...

What do you do when you believe, but feel too weak to live what you believe? James ends his letter where he began: with faith growing toward a life that is complete, lacking nothing, amid the troubles of ordinary life. In this final sermon in our Faith at Work series, James 5:13-20 invites us to participate in that work through prayer, praise, and the care we give and receive. In suffering, we tur...

"Come now, you rich. Weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you." Just some light, Sunday morning devotional reading... right? In James 5:1-12, James speaks first as a prophet against the unrighteous rich: those who hoard, defraud, and live in self-indulgence while the people who work for them go unpaid or overlooked. Then he turns to those who are taken advantage of--the ones who wer...

What is your life? A mist? A vapor? Something more? Less? In James 4, James turns from the war within us to the way we live in the world. He confronts two universal sins: the individual sin of judging and condemning one another — exalting ourselves to lawgivers — and the collective sin of presuming we are in control of our lives, planning our futures as if we were the source of our own present and...

What keeps you from peace? In week 9 of our series on James, we arrive at one of the most confrontational passages in the New Testament. James asks, "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?" His answer is not about the other person, the circumstances, or even the truth — it is about the war within us: frustrated desire met with twisted passion. This sermon moves through Ja...

How do you know if you are living wisely? James does not ask for your credentials. He asks for evidence. "Who is wise and understanding among you?" is not a question looking for a particular set of ideas or even beliefs — it is a question looking for a particular way of life. In James 3:13-18 there are two kinds of wisdom. One is earthly and unspiritual, carrying bitter jealousy and self...

What if the problem with our words is deeper than just saying the wrong thing? In James 3:1-12, we are invited to feel the weight of the tongue. Our words matter in our journey of faith, our work, and our community. They can bless God while wounding people made in his likeness. They can become a fire that divides, or they can participate in the healing work of the Word made flesh. This sermon trac...

What if faith was never meant to be a private belief you keep separate from the rest of your life? In week 5 of James: Faith At Work , we sit with one of the more difficult and controversial passages in the New Testament: James 2:14-26. James asks, to paraphrase, "What good is a claim of faith while ignoring a brother or sister in need?" He presses against a faith that separates us from...

Many of our churches ignore our tendencies towards partiality, justify our favoritism, and excuse our cliquish exclusivity, labeling it 'fellowship.' But what if this is an afront to God, who, after all, "shows no partiality" (Rom. 2:11)? What if communities filled with partiality actually betray their professed faith in Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory? In week 4 of our summer se...

A plant grown without wind grows weak. James says your faith is no different — the friction of an ordinary week may be the very thing God is using to strengthen and mature both you and your faith. In week 2 of our look at James we walk through James 1:19-27: How do we move from merely agreeing with our faith to participating in it fully? We consider the work of faith and faith at work, as we grow...

Sheltered, undisturbed plants may grow fast and even tall, but the result is a weak, fragile, and easily uprooted plant. By contrast, plants exposed to rain, wind, and the occasional disturbance grow strong, stable, and sturdy. Your soul works the same way. In this opening sermon of our summer series through the letter of James, we walk through James 1:1–18 and the old wisdom he himself leans into...

What if work was never the thing to survive on the way to your real life — but the very medium through which you offer yourself to God? In the finale of our "Get(ing) Out of Work" series we consider a few of the ancient, yet ever new, practices that the church has used to help God's people stay in step with the Spirit during the daily rhythms of work and rest, rest and work. Drawing...

What if the burden of your work isn't that there's too much to do — but that there's an anxiousness in your soul that no productivity system can fix? This Sunday we looked at Matthew 11:25-30, sitting with the weight of Jesus' invitation to all who are "heavy laden." The Greek word for burden, notably, carries with it not just the image of an animal loaded past its capaci...

What would change tomorrow if you forgot about serving others — and simply served the work? In Week 5 of our post-Easter series, we learn that for work to become a delight and fulfillment, it has to become something we submit to — not a means of getting something, but the medium through which we offer our whole selves to God. And in one of the most counterintuitive moves in the series: serving the...

What if the good life isn't getting out of work — but getting the good out of work? A common narrative today is one that says the good life is what waits on the other side of our labor, that progress always means doing less, working less, and somehow still getting more, and that the human ideal is a consumer at leisure. It's a compelling story. And it's one most of us have swallowed wh...

Sabbath isn't a reward for a productive week. It's a declaration that you're already free. In week three of Get(ing) Out of Work , we turn to Deuteronomy 5 — where Moses restates the Sabbath command and adds something Exodus doesn't: a reason. Not creation, but liberation. God commands rest because he already got you out. To Sabbath is to remember who freed you, and to refuse — aga...

Work isn't what's broken. We are. And that changes everything about how we show up on Monday. Tracing the Genesis narrative through the Fall, Noah, and the Noahic covenant, Pastor Jeremy Pace shows that the pain and struggle we experience in work stem from twisted human hearts, not from work itself. Work is our good, not merely a means to good things — it is our specific human contribution to God'...