Church of the City New York

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Fall sermon series, The Jesus Stuff, by taking a deeper look at the importance of communion with God in the secret place. The source of flourishing in Jesus' ministry was His consistent time withdrawing to the secret place to pray and spend time with His Father, and through His death and resurrection we also have access to this source of life.

This Sunday, Pastor Suzy continued our Fall sermon series, The Jesus Stuff, by diving into the importance of being dependent on the Holy Spirit and interdependent on the body of Christ.

This Sunday, guest Pastor Darren Rouanzoin continued our Fall sermon series, The Jesus Stuff, with a powerful and practical teaching on healing. When we look at the ministry of Jesus, it is clear that He prioritized preaching the Kingdom, healing the sick, and casting out demons, and as His followers, we are called to continue this ministry here on earth through the power of the Holy Spirit.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Fall sermon series, The Jesus Stuff, with a clarifying teaching on the what the Kingdom of God actually is and what it looks like to seek it first in our world today. The Kingdom of God is the reality of God bringing about His will on earth. The gospel of the Kingdom is a threat, and pursing it will bring resistance into our lives, but we cannot do The Jesus Stuff without the Kingdom stuff.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Fall sermon series, The Jesus Stuff, by posing three questions we can ask before we walk into any situation that will help lead us to live as Jesus did, not just manage our sin. As we pursue The Jesus Stuff, we must have faith that God is moving so we can join Him, listen for His promptings so we can hear His whispers of where to go, and move in obedience towards where He leads no matter the cost.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon kicked off our Fall sermon series, The Jesus Stuff, where we will examine the kind of disciples Jesus calls us to be by taking a deeper look at how He lived His life. When we obey what Jesus calls us to do, resolving to not only learn from Him but act like Him, we move from participating in generic faith to living explicitly for Jesus. The Gospel is our invitation to burn with passion for the person of Jesus, and our call to the missionary adventure of reminding people of the beauty of the Jesus Stuff.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon wrapped up our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians, with Paul's closing message to the church at Philippi. When we study Paul's life and church history, it is evident that the Gospel is always moving along relational lines. Through Paul's relationship with the Philippians we see the Gospel being carried out because of their sacrificial commitment to Jesus and His Kingdom, long, loyal relationships to one another, and generous partnerships to promote the movement. Paul's life of mission was a response to the love that saved him, and he calls us to respond in the same way, giving everything we have for the sake of the Gospel.

This Sunday, Pastor Ashley, continued our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians, by focusing on Paul's insight into the peace of God and the God of peace being available to us. Paul's message is not meant to dismiss anxiety, but to reveal our access to peace in the midst of distress. Pastor Ashley taught that Paul first calls us to rejoice in the Lord and what He's done, to be gentle with one another, and finally to not be anxious about anything. The order of these exhortations tell us that peace is not found in the absence of anxiety, but in the reorientation of every circumstance in the presence of Jesus.

This Sunday, guest Pastor, Darren Whitehead, continued our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians, and focused in on Paul's call to unity in the church. These verses reveal a conflict between two women in the church at Philippi, but Paul pleads with them to have the same mind in the Lord. This points us to the truth that the beauty of unity is rooted in God's ability to transform our desires towards His. Community is not an absence of conflict, but the presence of God's reconciling Spirit. However, there are cultural challenges that try to stand in the way unity. The church today faces political, racial, generational, and economic divides, but in the Lord there can be a unity in the body that crosses all of these lines. As believers, our loyalty to Jesus should be greater than our loyalty to any political party, we should identify first and foremost as a follower of Jesus, we should honor the generation before us and not look down on the generation after but build them up, and we should extend care within the church regardless of financial standing. These counter-cultural postures foster unity in the church and creates access to new authority. Pastor Darren referenced Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell on followers of Jesus, and before the Spirit came, it is said that the believers were 'all of one accord in one place.' It was after unity was already happening that God poured out His Spirit, and the early church was born. Unity is so important to God that He commands a blessing where His people live in unity with one another. We each have the ability to disrupt unity, but we also have the ability to repair it, and this is God's call to us today.

This Sunday, Pastor Suzy continued our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians, by teaching on Paul's call for us to live into our heavenly citizenship. Believers have been given the benefits of being co-heirs with Christ because of His sacrifice on the cross, but we must live up to what we have attained through Him. This passage tells us that we are citizens of heaven, but that we are called to live up to that truth in this life.