Resurrection City Church - St. Paul Minnesota

Paul shifts his tone in this part of his letter to the Philippians as he braces for outsiders on their way to the community who are critical of Paul’s gospel. To help them respond to what these outside teachers will say he tells his story and he establishes the weight of glory found in God’s self-disclosure, Jesus, against all other claimants on that glory. Pastor Joel helps us sift through the co...

Posture is important for our bodies, both in the short and long term. Posture is also a helpful way to think about our relation to the world around us as Christians living within it. When we recognize that God truly works in the midst of our church, it gives a sense of meaning to all of our actions, and a desire to invite people in to experience it themselves. This leads us to adopt a posture of w...

The center of Christianity is Christ, and the center for our relations to each other in the church is his sacrifice for us. How do we live out his sacrifice for us? Through radical unity. Res City elder Miles Trump shares how we can center and live out our relations to each other by focusing on and following the model of Jesus. 

The Apostle Paul is in a rough situation. He's stuck in prison (and everyone knows it's because of Jesus) and there are some people who have jumped into take over his duty with motives of influence and fame. Yet, despite all that, Paul is encouraged because he knows the pattern of the gospel's spread is the same as how it works: death, pain, hardship, and more lead to life, fruit, and hope. His si...

When you open the letter to the Philippians, you find Paul the apostle in prison thanking the congregation of the church in Philippi for helping him out, and speaking of their "partnership in the gospel." This idea of "partnership" is fundamental for Paul when thinking of Christian relationships within churches, and in this sermon Pastor Joel explores what it means and how it's lived out. 

It's baptism Sunday at Res City, and also the week where we kick off our new sermon series in the book of Philippians. Pastor Joel begin by asking if God finishes what he starts, something Paul says God does indeed do. It's a perfect question to consider as we celebrate baptism. What follows is a consideration of that statement by reflecting on God's purposes throughout all of Scripture, consideri...

As we wrap up our Seeking Wisdom series, Pastor Julie preaches on how wisdom applies to the problem of anxiety--something we all feel sometimes and something many people struggle with on a regular basis. Practical while also theological, you don't want to miss this sermon!

Living a life of generosity goes against the grain, costing us something. We can tell ourselves all kinds of reasons why wisdom tells us to not live generously, but when we really look at what wisdom and the gospel actually have to say about it, we find living generously is essential to both. In this sermon, Angela Hermanson, Res City’s Governance Team chair, explores all of this.

The book of Song of Songs holds out hope for restored relationships, love, and intimacy, but we still live in a world with broken sexuality. Pastor Julie talks about how to move forward with healing from sexual sin or sexual assault.

Song of Songs presents a vineyard of love that grows between the Young Woman and the Young Man, one green and flourishing, in some ways a return to the garden of Eden. However, little foxes threaten to take the fruit of their intimacy before they can get it. In this sermon, Pastor Joel walks through four different 'foxes' from the Song of Songs that can throw a wrench into the intimacy of a couple...

When is the right time for love? Pastor Julie talks about a piece of wisdom from Song of Songs: don't awaken love until the right time. Sex and intimacy are important parts of the human life, but they are best experienced in their proper contexts. Julie walks through how our spiritual union with Jesus can be a guide for intimacy in our relationships.

Tim Mackie says that, “If the purpose of this biblical literature is to  educate us in how to think wisely and well about the many aspects of life in God’s design, it makes all the sense in the world why an entire book would be dedicated to celebrating the goodness of love.” Continuing with a new wisdom mini-series, Pastor Joel explains how Song of Songs communicates wisdom to us in love and relat...

Job is at his wit's end, and in a very relatable move he tries to make sense of his predicament. However, in doing so he questions God and removes himself from wisdom. God shows up--and his response is one you don't want to miss. We find wisdom as we study God's response, and learn that while much is outside our grasp, God gives us what we need with the revelation of his response to pain, sufferin...

Many people experience suffering on a daily basis, and we want to know where God is in our suffering. The answer is found in wisdom--and Job is here to teach us what wisdom looks like in suffering. 

Everything we do as Christians should be done in community, including suffering. In this sermon, Pastor Joel uses Job's friends as positive and negative examples of how to walk with a brother or sister who is suffering--and he explains why this matters for how those outside the church view us as well.

Easter and resurrection are the center of everything we do as Christians--our hope for new life in the future, our hope that that we believe is rooted in truth, and our hope that God is doing new things in us. Pastor Julie talks about the relevance of God's work to make us new after the year of struggle we've all been through. 

Job is the third wisdom literature book we’re studying in this series, and it asks difficult questions that make us examine ourselves and how we view God, as well as inviting us to wisdom when the day of suffering comes. Pastor Joel introduces this series in this sermon.

The book of Ecclesiastes is wisdom that gives us a little jolt. The Author of the book compares it to a cattle prod,  sharply pointing us in the right direction. What is jolting is the fact that it tells us how fleeting everything "under the sun"--common human experience--is. What we need is to pursue meaning from wisdom that lasts. Pastor Joel helps us take the hard words of Ecclesiastes in the r...

There's a season for everything, but how can we know when those seasons are? In this message from Ecclesiastes, Pastor Julie talks about why it can be so difficult to make decisions, and how God wants us to rely on him for wisdom instead of trying to take it for ourselves.

The book of Ecclesiastes is not for the faint of heart. It offers a depressing and cynical look at the world, and it challenges us to not dismiss its words. One of its critiques of the world is that injustice is everywhere, and rest of the Bible's witness is the same: no one seeks out justice to the fullest extent because of sin.    The important question is what God's response to this is, and in...

What's my purpose in life? If you ever wondered that question, you're not alone. Ecclesiastes is a book that asks hard questions about if the things we find meaning in actually provide it. Pastor Julie talks about the beginning of Ecclesiastes and how the wise person finds their meaning and purpose in Jesus.

Wisdom's guiding principle is that God is just and righteous, and his wisdom reflects it. But to understand wisdom deeper, we need to grapple with the complexities of the world. In this sermon Pastor Joel digs into the story of Solomon, the author of Proverbs and the man who is associated with wisdom in the Old Testament more than any other, to give us an in depth understanding of wisdom -- which...

Proverbs doesn’t just tell us what wisdom looks like so that we may seek it out; it also tells us what folly looks like. The point is that we would recognize people with these traits and avoid their influence and understand these tendencies and try to weed them out of ourselves. Proverbs talks about four such forms of folly: Simple thinking, apathy, avoiding growth, and stirring up quarrels. Pasto...

Lady Wisdom, the personification of Wisdom in the book of Proverbs, calls us to heed her voice so we may find God's wisdom and live. She gives many exhortations to those who wish to become wise but we have to make a decision on whether or not we'll listen. In this sermon, Pastor Joel walks through three characteristics of the wise from the book of Proverbs.

We live in a time where we basically can get instant information on any subject we'd like. But one thing we can't easily know is what to do with it. Wisdom, the biblical concept that is found throughout the Bible, speaks up to tell us to listen to her and she will lead us to life. Join us as we start a new sermon series about what wisdom is.