Resurrection City Church - St. Paul Minnesota

The second and third part of the Lords prayer finds the person praying asking for something But if its Gods will they are asking for whose will is being prayed And what does it look like to desire Gods kingdomIn this sermon Pastor Joel describes the mingling of wills we find when humans pray for Gods kingdom to come what the kingdom is and learn to see where Gods kingdom is not in order to pray this petitionWe talk about the two types of Gods will how following Gods will is like playing music and tangled cords

The Lords Prayer is not just something that we pray in church some Sunday mornings Its a gift from Jesus to give us a model on how we can pray For this reason we ought to be praying this prayer on a regular basisBut before we can pray it we have to understand what it says This sermon series will go through the Lords Prayer line by line and break down what is happening so that we we pray we understand what is happening to us as we pray itThe first part of the prayer contains a tension God as Father and God as hallowed one The tension may seem stark but in reality if you can grasp the tension well you can move on and pray the rest of the prayer with abandon Pastor Joel walks us through the tension

We wrap up the Why Church series by asking how we do church well The church is a part of Gods work in reconciling the world back to himself and there are things the church can do to help make that happenPastor Joel walks through five things that all churches are called to but are also things we want to to be known for Those things are JusticeService Community and imitation of each other Beauty and art Proclamation CelebrationJoin us as we break each of these down

The author of the book of Hebrews tells us the church is a gathering of the redeemed who enter Gods presence because Jesus has made a way Specifically there are three Let us exhortations that constitute this authors vision to how we are to live as a community The three Let us exhortations or lettuces are1 Let us draw near to God 2 Let us hold onto our hope and 3 Let us challenge and encourage one another and not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing In this sermon Pastor Julie tells us why we should be in the habit of doing these 3 Lettuces together as a church each week and how we do it well

To grow is to stay at the beginning What does this mean That we must consistently draw our Christian life from the essentials of our faith And one of the primary essentials to our faith is the church But why is this And what are the reasons we attend each weekThis series aims to get us thinking about the answer to this question In this sermon Pastor Joel kicks us off by walking us through the church is an embassy of reconciliation the reconciliation between God and the world that is being enacted through Jesus We are ambassadors of this message and the church is the place where the foreign soil of reconciliation manifests in our worldReconciliation works itself out in the church in 3 ways 1 Reconciliation back to God through creating counterhabits of worship that point us back to the beginning of our faith 2 Reconciliation to one another through true interconnectivity as opposed to false interconnectivity through by digital means and3 Reconciliation of all our our thought under the Lordship of Christ a forei

Every culture tells stories which point to the values struggles and ethics it holds Naturally this happens with Christmas and the stories we tell ourselves both have overlap with and divergence from the true Christmas story told by Christians each year In most other Christmas stories we are told we must have Christmas spirit or we will suffer some consequence To start we look at A Christmas Carol and ElfOften we come to view Christmas Spirit as a moral code we are supposed to follow that no one can enforce but ourselves consisting of kindness generosity and charity Marys song roots us in an amazing story where God remembers his promises because she roots us in Israels story This is a story about a people who are unkind disingenuous and uncharitable Despite that God remembers his promise to themand comes in the most vulnerable way imaginable We must be able to respond in our own vulnerability to truly receive and understand the gift of ChristmasWhen we do we can then truly embody Christmas Spirit in the fulles

Marys Song The Magnificat is known as a revolutionary song But what makes it so revolutionary What made it get banned in some countries in history because it could cause trouble for those in power Why does it cast down the mighty and lift high the lowly In this sermon Pastor Julie walks through the powerful message of the song and what it says to both those who are mighty and those who are lowly

A young teenage girl is suddenly awakened by a messenger from God who tells her she will be of central importance in Gods plan to redeem the world Her response A fearless and revolutionary song For Advent season we are going to look at Marys Song long revered in Christian history for the way it magnifies the God who it refers to And specifically Pastor Julie digs into how it helps us to find true joy at Christmas instead of fake holiday spirit when we magnify God like Mary

Daniel wraps up with a long vision of what will happen in the unfolding centuries and what God will do to vindicate his people The big idea of the passage is that God rules history and it is all faithful to accomplish his purposesPastor Joel preaches on two bad ways and two good ways taken from the passage to respond to Gods rule of history His rule works towards his purpose of entering into his own story as a child and as Daniels story culminates we introduce the Advent season as we approach Christmas

Before Daniel can receive the final vision of the book he learns that the angel delivering the vision has been detained by another spiritual being This is a perplexing passage that deserves a full look at the realm of God and the sons of God We learn about a parallel spiritual conflict to the one Daniel is revealing to usAs we study the topic of spiritual warfare we find out that the response from us is to go about our normal Christian rhythms But we must not forget that those normal patterns are infused with greater meaning because they find resonance in the world we will explore in todays passage

In Daniel 9 we find a disappointed and frustrated Daniel one who had an expectation of God that is currently unmet Daniel reflects on his peoples relationship with God and there are so many takeaways for us in this jewel of a passage As Pastor Joel digs into it we find great encouragement for our own relationship with God as we examine it in depth learning how we can rest firm in it because God is part of it He is all we need

Daniel 8 details major conflict in the world that will unfold and affect Gods people Despite parts of the vision that terrify Daniel into making him want to take a nap weve all been there Daniel the big picture is that God is in control and we can rest firm in thatThis is great news but it shouldnt be enough for us to just know that and then do nothing with it Its important that we pause and think about how we live practically knowing God is in control of all that unfolds Pastor Julie breaks down what that looks like in this sermon while also giving you a quick and entertaining description of the history described in the passage

In Daniel 7 a strange figure is central to Gods purposes in judging the beasts That figure is revealed as Jesus where he confesses to being him on a trial before the Jewish religious authorities In both cases God reveals or unmasks the situation as it is from heaven In order for us to get the glory of the passage we have to reveal or unmask our own situations over and over in our own hearts If we dont we will find ourselves getting bored with the gospel Pastor Joel talks about how to keep the gospel from being stale in our hearts even when weve heard it so many times

In Daniel 7 Daniel has a vision of four beasts who cause havoc on the earth In it we find a picture that resonates with our own crazy times Daniel 7 is a lot of things and the imagery in the passage is tough to understand but when we get a grasp of it we see that it is a goldmine for leading us to understand what God is doing in the world about evil and chaosPastor Joel illustrates how to understand the type of literature that Daniel 7 is written in as well as what it means for us in our own conflictravaged world

Daniel is thrown into a pit of hungry lions looking for something to devour We may not ever get thrown into a lions den but we have all felt like we were in a pit surrounded by lions who are licking their lipsIn this sermon on Daniel 6 Pastor Joel explains that its important that we view the lions den well like Daniel does Only when we reframe the experience and quit assuming we know what is happening in the den can we have hope in God to deliver us Note This sermon was rerecorded due to technical difficulties

In Daniel 5 King Belshazzar is confronted with the word of God and it terrifies him It is a picture of us when we read Scripture We can find ourselves confused by it like when the history of the text doesnt align perfectly with other history as happens in this passage offended by it or frustrated that it doesnt give us what we want We need to be ready to let Scripture achieve its purpose and we need to know the master key to unlock it Jesus Otherwise it will rightly confound us and keep us from understanding its message Pastor Joel walks through how we can related well to Scripture in this sermon

Daniel has shown us how we can follow Jesus and still find excellence but this doesnt mean we wont sometimes face opposition On top of that we are faced with the sometimes confusing question of how we should act in a pluralistic societyIn this sermon on Daniel 3 we find out how we are called to follow Jesus when we are pressured to bow to some idolFind out more about Resurrection City ChurchGo to our website rescitychurchorgFollow us on Instagram and Twitter and like us on Facebook

When the apostle Paul walks into Athens in Acts 17 he observes and is distressed by many idols all relating to different aspects of peoples lives His response is a disruptive gospel that takes the system of life of the people of Athens and turns it on its head In this Fall Kick Off sermon Pastor Joel tells why this disruptive gospel is one we need to retune ourselves and why its good to be made uncomfortable by the news of Jesus