Ever wonder if God is playing favorites? Romans 9:14-29 is the passage that raises that question directly, and most of us have either skipped past it or walked away more confused than when we started.

In this episode, Pastor Josh Slater works through Paul's answer to one of the hardest questions in Scripture: is God unjust when he shows mercy to one person and hardens another? Starting with Jacob and Esau and moving through Pharaoh's story in Exodus, Josh shows that God's justice and God's mercy are not opposites fighting each other. They run on the same track, and both reveal the same thing, how glorious God is. From there, the message turns to the potter and the clay, the tension between God's sovereignty and human responsibility, and finally to the promise that God is building a people for himself out of Jews and Gentiles alike, exactly like Hosea and Isaiah said he would.

Key scripture: Romans 9:14-29. This is the passage that forces the question of whether God's choices can be trusted even when we don't fully understand them, and Paul's answer is that God's glory, not our comfort, is the standard.

New sermons from Prairie Valley Church drop every week. Find all our links at https://link.content360.io/PVC and subscribe so you never miss one.

Outline and Transcript

Ask ten people what the Bible is about and you will get ten different answers: a rulebook for being good, an

outdated book that does not apply anymore, a collection of unrelated ancient stories. None of those are right.

In this episode, Pastor Josh Slater steps back from his usual verse-by-verse teaching to walk through the

entire storyline of Scripture in one message. Starting in a garden where God walked with the people he

made, through the moment everything broke, through the promise made to Abraham, the rescue at the Red

Sea, a king who pointed to a better king, and a prophet who saw a suffering Savior coming seven hundred

years early, this episode traces one thread from Genesis to Revelation: God rescuing and restoring what humanity lost. It lands where the whole story lands, a promise kept in Jesus, and a promise still being kept in a story that is not finished yet.

This episode centers on Genesis 3:15 and Luke 24:25-27, where Jesus himself explains that every part of the Old Testament had been pointing to him the entire time.

New sermons from Prairie Valley Church drop every week. Find all our links at https://link.content360.io/PVC and subscribe so you never miss one.

You've probably met someone who thinks their family history, their church attendance, or just being a good person has already secured their place in heaven. Paul met people like that too, and it broke his heart.

This episode walks through Romans 9:1-13, where Paul grieves over his own people, the Israelites, who had every spiritual advantage a person could have (the adoption, the covenants, the law, even the Messiah himself) and still missed Jesus. Pastor Josh Slater unpacks why heritage was never the point, works through the story of Jacob and Esau, and lands on the hardest question in the passage: does God really love one and hate the other? The answer reframes the whole idea of what it means to belong to God.

Key scripture: Romans 9:1-13. Paul argues that God's promise was never inherited by blood, it was always received by faith, which is exactly how someone becomes a child of God today.

New sermons from Prairie Valley Church drop every week. Find all our links at https://link.content360.io/PVC and subscribe so you never miss one.

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Episode title: Is God Really For Me?

Does God still love you when your life is falling apart? Not in theory, but on the actual bad day you're having right now.

In this message from Romans 8:31-39, Pastor Josh Slater walks through Paul's closing argument for the entire eighth chapter of Romans, a passage written specifically to people who had real reasons to wonder if God had abandoned them. Paul doesn't argue that hardship will disappear. He argues that nothing, not suffering, not failure, not accusation, not even death, can separate a believer from the love of God in Christ. Along the way, this episode covers what it means that God "did not spare his own Son," why the courtroom language of Romans 8:33-34 means every accusation against you has already been answered, and what Paul actually meant when he said we are "more than conquerors."

Key scripture: Romans 8:31-39. This passage is Paul's own conclusion to everything he's argued since chapter 1, that nothing in this life or beyond it can undo what God has already secured for those who are in Christ.

New sermons from Prairie Valley Church drop every week. Find all our links at link.content360.io/PVC and subscribe so you never miss one.

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Ever wonder if your suffering means God has forgotten about you? In this message, Pastor Josh Slater walks through Romans 8:18-30 to make the case that present pain isn't evidence of abandonment — it's evidence you're caught up in labor pains that end in a glory already secured before you were born.

This episode traces Paul's argument in three movements: creation itself groaning under a curse it didn't choose, believers groaning with a hope made sharper because they've already tasted the Spirit, and the Spirit himself interceding with groans too deep for words when we can't find our own. It closes with Paul's "golden chain" — the unbreakable sequence from God's foreknowing to our future glory — and a direct invitation to anyone who hasn't yet placed their trust in Christ.

Key scripture: Romans 8:18-30 — Paul's argument that present suffering, however real, cannot be compared to the glory that is coming, because that glory was secured before creation even began.

New sermons from Prairie Valley Church drop every week. Find all our links at link.content360.io/PVC and subscribe so you never miss one.

You don't get to choose the family you were born into, and if we're honest, none of them were perfect. So what happens when a perfect Father chooses you?

In this message from Romans 8:12-17, Josh Slater walks through what it actually means to be adopted into God's family. The message opens with the obligation believers no longer carry to their old life, moves through what it means to be led by God's Spirit and cry out "Abba, Father," and ends with the hardest part of the promise: that being God's child means walking the same road Jesus walked, suffering included. Along the way, Josh pushes back on the idea that adoption was some easy, expected outcome in the ancient world, and makes the case that being welcomed into God's family was never something anyone was entitled to.

Key scripture: Romans 8:12-17. Paul's argument here moves from what believers owe the flesh (nothing) to what they've received instead: adoption, intimacy with God, and a shared inheritance with Christ that includes both glory and suffering.

New sermons from Prairie Valley Church drop every week. Find all our links at link.content360.io/PVC and subscribe so you never miss one.

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If God Forgave You, Why Are You Still Carrying It?

Most of us know we have been forgiven. What we cannot figure out is why we are still carrying the guilt.

Romans 8:1 opens with one of the most direct declarations in the Bible: there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But Paul does not stop there. He immediately raises the harder question: if the verdict has been declared, why do so many believers still live like the case is still open?

In this episode, Pastor Josh Slater works through Romans 8:1-11 in two movements. The first is a declaration: the sentence has been canceled. God is not holding your sin against you. The cross settled it. And the phrase "I just need to forgive myself," as common as it is, is actually telling God His forgiveness was not enough.

The second movement is a challenge. Because the Spirit of God lives in you, you now have a choice about what you set your mind on. The mindset of the flesh defaults to self, sin, and death. The mindset of the Spirit moves toward life and peace. And here is the hard part: you will never accidentally drift toward God. Every drift goes the other direction. Holiness takes intention.

Whether you are wrestling with guilt you cannot shake, going through the motions in your faith, or trying to understand what it actually means to have the Holy Spirit living in you, this message is for you.

New sermons from Prairie Valley Church drop every week. Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss one.

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Outline and Transcript

Where do you turn when life feels dangerous and nothing seems to hold? Psalm 121 was written for pilgrims on a long and treacherous road — people who needed real help, not religious platitudes. This message from Prairie Valley Church in Campbell, TX explores what it means to stop looking to the hills and fix your eyes on the one Protector who never sleeps, never stops, and never looks away.

Whether you're carrying grief, anxiety, financial pressure, or broken relationships, this psalm has a word for you. The Creator of the universe completely protects his pilgrims — now and forever.

Prairie Valley Church | Campbell, TX | Pastor Josh Slater | Sacred Songs Sermon Series

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Outline and Transcript