Reality Church Vancouver Teachings Podcast

This sermon begins with the question: When was the last time you admitted you were wrong without being prompted? Looking at Jesus’s words in Matthew 5, the message reminds us that our relationships with the people around us matter just as much to God as our relationship with Him. The problem is, between our own egos, the culture around us, and a bit of human nature, we are absolute experts at maki...

Prayer in Every Circumstance // 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Lydia Cruttwell Ever feel like your prayer life has to fit into a rigid, one-size-fits-all box? In this message, we dive into Paul’s famous words in 1 Thessalonians to uncover what it actually means to rejoice, pray, and give thanks continually in our messy, everyday lives. Whether you're a morning person or someone who prays best while chopp...

What if the key to a deeper relationship with God is simply losing our fear of bothering Him? In this sermon, we look at how the stories of Mary sitting at Jesus' feet and a neighbour banging on a door at midnight invite us to shamelessly seek a God who is already shamelessly pursuing us with the ultimate gift: His Holy Spirit. Recorded June 7, 2026.

In this teaching, we continue in our series on what it actually looks like to walk in the forgiving power of the Holy Spirit, focusing this week on Jesus’ practical blueprint for reconciliation. When we’ve been deeply wronged, the path forward can feel incredibly messy, but his teaching shows us how to navigate that hurt without losing our connection to each other. Join us as we look at how to bui...

Ever feel like you know what to do when it comes to faith, but you have no clue how to actually do it? In this episode, we explore the unexpected joy and "holy laughter" that comes when we finally stop hiding our struggles and receive absurd, life-changing grace by the Holy Spirit. Recorded May 17, 2026.

Continuing our journey through John 20, we dive deep into the transformative intersection of the Holy Spirit’s power and the discipline of forgiveness. This session moves beyond theory to define biblical forgiveness and offers a practical framework for interrogating the emotions that hold us back. Recorded May 10, 2026.

We often view our failures through the lens of a "disappointed God," leading us to hide in "locked rooms" of shame and self-protection. This week, we dive into Genesis 3 to discover that God’s response to our sin isn't an angry outburst, but a grieving lament that moves toward us in grace. Join us as we explore how the practice of confession breaks the power of our secrets and invites the Holy Spi...

In this week’s teaching, we return to John 20:19-23, where we find the disciples hiding in fear after Jesus’ crucifixion. The resurrected Jesus appears and breathes out the Holy Spirit, but in a surprising move, it’s not with the intention of making all of our dreams come true. Instead, the passage suggests the Holy Spirit empowers us to do the one thing our culture finds nearly impossible: to rel...

This week, as we transition into the season of Pentecost, we encounter the disciples barricaded in a locked room of fear, grief, and failure. But then Jesus shows up preaching peace and the good news that locked doors are no obstacle to the Risen Christ who enters our mess, shows us his scars, and offers us 'Divine CPR' through the Holy Spirit. Whether you are ready to rejoice or you’re just barel...

We often live by a "common sense" that prioritizes self-protection and accumulation, but in the Beatitudes, Jesus invites us into a radical vision of flourishing where the poor, the mourning, and the persecuted are truly blessed. In this message, we explore why moving from vision to reality is so difficult and how we can begin to unlearn the "empire in our bones." Discover how new heroes, intentio...

In this message, we explore the Easter narrative in the Gospel of Matthew, looking at how the death and resurrection of Jesus into two essential movements: Lament and Hope. The Cross forces us to face the darkness of our world and our own "Empire" tendencies—the ways we prioritize power over vulnerability. Through the practice of lament, we name the violence, the housing crisis, and our personal s...

In this week's message, we kicked off Holy Week by looking at Matthew 21:1-17. We explored the "directional" nature of Lent—how Jesus’ turn toward Jerusalem was a resolute move toward the cross, not a military throne. While the crowd offered their cloaks (their most essential security) and waved palm branches (symbols of nationalistic victory), their hearts were still calibrated to the frequency o...

In the conclusion of our Beatitudes series, we explore Jesus’ most counter-cultural claim: that a "blessed" life can coexist with—and is even marked by—persecution. Like art, Jesus invites us to shift our perspective away from cultural formulas of comfort and toward a theological imagination that sees the world anew. Join us as we discuss how living with one foot in the Kingdom of Heaven transform...

Of all the Beatitudes, Jesus’ call to find blessing in persecution may feel the most in opposition to our culture. This week, we explore the "squeeze" of social rejection and why our individualistic "operating systems" make us so afraid of it. Join us as we learn to re-embed our lives in the story of the Cross—finding the community and cosmic perspective we need to face the pressure of the world w...

As we near the end of our series on the Beatitudes, we look at Jesus’ words: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” In a world shaped by empire and conflict, Jesus offers a radically different vision of peace— which is not withdrawal, segregation, violence or collaboration, but the invitation to join Jesus in becoming a sacrificial shalom-maker. This teaching invites us to reconsider how followers of Jesu...

Jesus’ promise, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” challenges our assumptions about what it means to truly know God. In this message, we explore how Jesus shifts the focus from religious performance to an honest, undivided heart that brings our whole selves before him. Even in seasons when God feels distant, this beatitude invites us to discover the surprising gift of seeing G...

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—...

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 just...

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 justic...

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 meeti...

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 failu...

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...

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...

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 wher...

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 th...