Saints‘ Hill Church Podcast

The Way of the Disciple: Partnership & Pruning

How do you change? How does someone become more like Christ?

This question is key to understanding the journey of the disciple as we move from fear to love.

The first step in changing, in becoming more like Jesus, is seeing God correctly. The primary way we see Jesus interacting with God, is as a Father. Even further, there are two specific ways we get fathered by God that produce lasting change in us: His partnership and His correction.

God is a good dad who has always been interested in partnering with you to see heaven come to earth. When you see the partnership He desires, you will begin to change out of the love He has for you. This is a powerful motivation.

God is also interested in you bearing fruit that will last. He is a Father Gardener and he walks through the garden of your life and looks for things with eternal value. He cuts, or prunes, anything that isn’t producing eternally valuable fruit. This is how He shows us that we are His children and demonstrates His jealous love for us. It’s for our flourishing and for His glory.

The Way of the Disciple: You Are Not a Civilian

This last Sunday we continued in our series on discipleship, exploring the idea of what it means to be unafraid sons and daughters who are able to rule in love alongside Christ for the renewal of the world.

The vision statement over every human being is to rule alongside God (Gen 1v26) — to be the royal representation of God here on earth. What you believe, or who you trust, will determine whether you rule correctly. We often fail at this, but there was a man who didn’t, and He showed us how to be disciples.

Jesus had to trust the Father that He would raise Him from the dead. In this Jesus defined discipleship: our job is the dying, God’s job is the raising.

Paul says that we are not civilians - we say “no” to some things that others say “yes”to so we can give our big yes to God. The vision God has for the earth has become ours, so we don’t have a personal project we are building outside of His project. This is the vision of discipleship!

The Way of the Disciple: From Fear to Love

This last Sunday we began a new series on discipleship. Alex taught us through Colossians 3v1-17 and posed the question, what is the life of the disciple supposed to look like?

Our working definition of discipleship is - the relational invitation to make your identity visible. It requires effort, intentionality, and thoughtfulness, but its foundation is love. You can only change to the degree that you understand God’s radical love for you.

What does this look like practically? You begin dismantling the lies and fear that once formed your identity through choices you make with God, not apart from Him. Choices that reflect moving away from fear and moving towards trust.

The vision of God from the very beginning of time is that humans would enter such a trust-filled relationship with Him, that they become unafraid sons and daughters - able to rule in love alongside Christ for the renewal of the world. 

Life of the Church: On Faith Foibles

What is the relationship between faith and works?

This last Sunday, Chris presented us with the variety of perspectives that the authors of the Scriptures give on this relationship. How do we live within the tension that what we do doesn’t matter at all, yet what we do matters a lot?

If our faith is a living thing, which the biblical authors seem to suggest, then perhaps the solution is to get as close to the source of “life” as possible. We know that this source is none other than Jesus himself — being in His presence, cultivating intimacy, and building trust with Him. This is what makes a fruitful life of love and obedience to God.

We trust the Holy Spirit to convict us of our sin, and assure us of our righteous identity in Christ. This is how God turns our weaknesses into our weapons!

Life of the Church: Death to Deconstruction

It’s true that every generation feels like the world is unraveling. However, throughout all of history, the disciple of Jesus has journeyed. It’s a narrow road that is neither a war against culture or an assimilation to it, but faithfulness to Jesus.

This last Sunday we were joined by one of our friends, Josh Porter, who brought us a word on what it means to be faithful to Jesus as an act of rebellion.

Jesus went deeper into faithfulness before us to show us how - by remaining in God and letting God remain in you.

All of the doubts, the devastation, the backsliding, and the questioning we face in this life are mere invitations to more of God’s grace. We find this grace in the context of the family of God, where we bear one another’s burdens and call each other higher as we worship in spirit and in truth. This is the beauty of the Church! We ask God’s blessing over you and over this family, that he would give us grace to run well.

Life of the Church: Our Hearts Ache But We Always Have Joy

This last Sunday one of our elders, Jim Traut, brought us a word on suffering well.

The Scriptures assure us that we will go through seasons of great pain and seasons of great joy. The key to living this life well is to trust Jesus. When your trust is in Him, and the promises in His word, your relationship with Him does not get swept away when trouble comes.

One of the unique roles suffering plays in our lives is that it always reveals where we’ve placed our trust. Favorable circumstances in life are a wonderful gift from God and to be celebrated, but they are not strong enough to build your life on. Your soul was made to rest in God - knowing Him, loving Him, and trusting Him.

Just like David, we are invited to be honest with God regardless of our circumstances. To cry out to Him, to grieve with Him, to rejoice with Him. We pray that in our suffering and in our rejoicing, that our lives would bring glory to God.

Life of the Church: Hunger For God

This last Sunday we had the privilege of hearing from one of our friends, Gerald Griffin. He encouraged us with stories from his own community of people coming alive with hunger for God.

What does it mean to be awakened to the presence of God, and how do you sustain it for the long haul? In short, if you put God and His glory at the center, everything else falls into place.

We need a center of gravity, greater than our career, hobbies, relationships, kids, or the vacations we go on. We need something with muchmore mass to pull us out of the gravitational pull of busyness. We need the glory of God and His Presence to anchor us in the reality of heaven.

One of the ways we can keep the reality of God, His beauty and His glory, before us at all times - is through a daily rhythm of prayer. When we behold God in our minds in prayer and Scripture we see His glory. Here there is an invitation to orient our days not around meal times or a work schedule, but around practicing prayer & awareness of His Presence.

The goal of existence, now and through eternity, is unbroken communion with God. We are invited to experience that reality daily through our intentional awareness of Him. 

Life of the Church: The Father Raising Fathers

To follow God is to allow His Spirit to teach you, and His Word to prune you. This allows you to represent the life of Jesus to the people around you as the Father would.

When things in life get messy, the invitation is to be reconnected to the Father who loves you unconditionally. He’s not looking for our spirituality, but our surrender. We are going to find ourselves in messy circumstances, they are all opportunities to grow and be reminded of truth by the Spirit.

Believing God is who He says He is looks like obeying. As we grow deeper in love and trust in Him, our desires will align with His and we’ll see heaven come to earth even in impossible situations.

Life of the Church: Temptations of the Heart

As we enter this new year of dependence on God, we must continually be reminded of our why. Asking what our “why” is keeps us near dependency. Our why reveals where we have given into temptation, and invites dependence.

Jesus knew his “why.” It was his identity, his mission from the Father, that kept Him in step through every temptation. It is from Jesus that we learn how to steward what God is doing, the dreams He has given, and the words He has spoken.

In Matthew 4v1-11 Jesus faced three temptations familiar to every human heart: the temptation to be relevant, spectacular, and powerful. His solution - resting in his God-given identity as the Beloved.

Deeper knowing, deeper loving, and deeper trusting of Him squashes every temptation that would invite us to build our own kingdom. Only then are we able to enjoy however He answers when we ask, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

2023: The Year of Dependence

This last Sunday our senior leader, Alex Rettmann cast some vision for us as we enter the new year.

We are invited to live a Kingdom life, not just a Christian life. Jesus didn’t just come to get you into heaven, He came to get heaven into you, so that heaven would come through you. This is the mission God has set out from the creation of the world and when you are on this mission with Him, life isn’t boring.

Our strategy to live this Kingdom life on offer cannot be one of lack. We must put Him as our goal rather than checking the temperature of everything around us to determine our course of action. He will make you a thermostat who changes everyone else’s course.

Like Jesus, we limit the activity of our life to only what we see the Father doing. A strategic choice of dependence, to step into more of his goodness. That’s what we’re after this year.