Word of Life Church Podcast

By Pastor Brian Zahnd

Society & Culture Government & Organizations Philosophy Religion & Spirituality Spirituality Non-Profit Christianity

What's Word of Life Church Podcast about?

Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri is a thriving non-denominational church led by Pastor Brian & Peri Zahnd. We are followers of Jesus seeking to be an authentic expression of the kingdom of Jesus in the twenty-first century. Additional sermon audio and other resources are available on our church website.

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The Season Of Advent: A Ref...

12.05.2021

God as holy fire is a theme throughout Scripture. Abraham encountered God as a burning torch and smoking oven. Moses encountered God in the burning bush. Elijah said, “The god who answers by fire is indeed God.” Ezekiel by the ...

Word of Life Church Podcast episodes:

12.05.2021 The Season Of Advent: A Refiner's Fire (Audio) God as holy fire is a theme throughout Scripture. Abraham encountered God as a burning torch and smoking oven. Moses encountered God in the burning bush. Elijah said, “The god who answers by fire is indeed God.” Ezekiel by the ...
11.28.2021 The Season Of Advent: A Surprising Salvation (Audio) Ours is a secular age. The sacred is pushed to the periphery. To keep the sacred at the center of our lives is a heroic act of defiance. Spirituality is not enough. Amorphous spirituality too easily becomes little more than ...
11.21.2021 When Everything's On Fire: The House of Love (Audio) In 1425 Andrei Rublev, a Russian monk and iconographer, created what would become one of the most famous icons in history: The Hospitality of Abraham, more commonly known as The Trinity. On one level it’s a depiction of the three ...
11.14.2021 When Everything's On Fire: The Dark Night Of Unknowing (Audio) In Genesis the new day doesn’t begin at sunrise or at midnight, but at sunset. Reflecting this, the Jewish Sabbath does not begin at sunrise on Saturday but at sundown on Friday. Each new day begins with new darkness. Newness ...
11.07.2021 Homecoming: A Tapestry of Grace (Audio) As I look back over the forty-year history of Word of Life Church I remember all kinds of things—some things beautiful; some things not so beautiful; times of delight and times of difficulty; seasons that were pleasant and seasons that ...
10.31.2021 When Everything's On Fire: The End Is the Beginning (Audio) In our faith journey with Jesus Christ we may pass through some dark seasons of doubt that feel like a dead end. But often what feels like the end is really just a new beginning.
10.24.2021 When Everything's On Fire (Audio) In recent years we've seen believers, pastors, and well-known Christian leaders publicly lose their faith. This phenomenon is happening with increasing regularity. Does that mean we who still believe are simply whistling past the graveyard and...
10.17.2021 "Not So Among You" (Audio) It is not our task to change the world or rule the world. We don’t have to win a war or win an election for the kingdom of God to come among us. The kingdom of God does not come ...
10.10.2021 The Tears of Jesus (Audio) The raising of Lazarus is the seventh and greatest sign in John’s Gospel. It points to Jesus’ resurrection, our resurrection, and the restoration of all things. In the raising of Lazarus, every Lazarus—every hopeless case—finds hope. But if this is...
10.03.2021 The Human Telos (Audio) What is the telos (the ultimate aim, the end) for human beings? The human telos is to participate in the divine nature; to fully become the sons and daughters of God and bear the divine image.
09.26.2021 Jesus or What? (Audio) Simon Peter perceived the truth: Once we really know by revelation who Jesus Christ is, we are ruined for anything else. There is no going back to the way things were before Christ. We can go away from Jesus, but ...
09.19.2021 Older Than Methuselah (Audio) In Genesis we read of an antediluvian who lived nearly a thousand years. What are the implications of the church being more than twice as old as Methuselah? There is hope to be found in the antiquity of the church.
09.12.2021 Practices For an Unhurried Life (Audio) We believe Jesus is the savior of the world, but we cannot experience any of the saving work that Jesus wants to do in us if we don’t slow down long enough to give attention to it. Jesus invites us ...
09.05.2021 Abide Don’t Strive (Audio) We live in a world that is moving quicker and quicker as we become a people who are busier and busier. The outcome of all our doing often leaves us burned out, strung out, exhausted, and anxious. In the midst ...
08.22.2021 You Can't Change the World, But You Can Change Your Life (Audio) "Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, 'The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, "Look, here it is!" or "There ...
08.15.2021 God and Soul: A Miktam (Audio) As surely as we need to tend to our physical wellbeing day by day, we also need to tend to the wellbeing of our soul day by day. This is the role of healthy religion. (Don't buy the modern lie ...
08.08.2021 A World Full of Blessings (Audio) Our secular age doesn’t make much room for a world filled with blessings. Our age is one that wants to reduce everything down to cold sterile mechanisms, where everything is predictable, provable, and explainable. We are given the choice to ...
08.01.2021 I Won't Back Down - Tom Petty (Audio) Well, I won't back downNo, I won't back downYou can stand me up at the gates of hellBut I won't back down No, I'll stand my groundWon't be turned aroundAnd I'll keep this world from draggin' me downGonna stand my...
07.25.2021 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2 (Audio) I have climbed highest mountainsI have run through the fieldsOnly to be with youOnly to be with youI have runI have crawledI have scaled these city wallsThese city wallsOnly to be with you But I still haven't found what I'm ...
07.18.2021 Higher Love - Steve Winwood (Audio) Think about it, there must be higher loveDown in the heart or hidden in the stars aboveWithout it, life is wasted timeLook inside your heart, I'll look inside mineThings look so bad everywhereIn this whole world, what is fair?We walk ...
07.11.2021 Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears (Audio) Welcome to your lifeThere's no turning backEven while we sleepWe will find youActing on your best behaviorTurn your back on mother natureEverybody wants to rule the worldIt's my own designIt's my own remorseHelp me to decideHelp me make...
07.04.2021 Gotta Serve Somebody - Bob Dylan (Audio) You may be an ambassador to England or FranceYou may like to gamble, you might like to danceYou may be the heavyweight champion of the worldYou might be a socialite with a long string of pearlsBut you’re gonna have to ...
06.27.2021 Strangers In A Strange Land: The Exile of the Early Christians (Audio) In his first epistle the Apostle Peter opens and closes his letter to the Christians living in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire with references to exiles and Babylon. When the Jewish people were exiles in Babylon, they were ...
06.13.2021 Strangers In A Strange Land: The Exodus of Moses (Audio) Moses grew up as a prince in the royal courts of Egypt. As such, Moses enjoyed the exclusive privileges and finest pleasures reserved for the Egyptian elite. Even though Moses was born a Hebrew, he was raised as an Egyptian ...
06.06.2021 Strangers In A Strange Land: The Quest of Abraham (Audio) Those who see by faith and walk by faith have a fraught relationship with this world. On the one hand we're not trying to flee or escape God’s good earth—this is our home. On the other hand, the world as ...
05.30.2021 Under the Oaks (Audio) Abraham’s encounter with the three angels under the oaks of Mamre is one of the most mystical stories in Genesis (a book full of mystical stories), and from the first century it has spoken to Christian readers about the mystery ...
05.23.2021 Pentecost Sunday: The Experience of the Spirit (Audio) The Bible tells the story of God’s redemptive work in history through the chosen people of Israel. And among the chosen people there were…chosen people. These chosen people (mostly men) were chosen by God for exceptional work through exceptional...
05.16.2021 The Supremacy of Christ: The Things Above (Audio) The Ascension of Christ is not about the absence of Christ but about the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of God — his promotion to the Oval Office of the Universe. Our King is not on Palatine Hill ...
05.09.2021 The Supremacy of Christ: Captive To No Ism (Audio) We must remain captive to Christ alone. Once we surrender to an ism—conservatism, progressivism, or whatever ism—it pushes us toward the absurd and cruel edges. This is not middle-of-the-road-ism but radical allegiance to Jesus Christ, in whom are...
05.02.2021 The Supremacy of Christ: The Center That Holds (Audio) "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold." -William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming "In Christ all things hold together." -St. Paul, Colossians 1:17
04.25.2021 The Supremacy of Christ: The Mystery of Christ (Audio) Much of religion turns out to be an elaborate system of defining who’s in, who’s out. It’s a system that necessarily accentuates difference in a way that admits some and excludes others. Of course, this contributes to, and even attempts ...
04.18.2021 The Supremacy of Christ: The New Humanity (Audio) Much of Paul’s letters are about the apostle explaining to the newly baptized how the new humanity is to live. The old pagan way of living is to be left behind. So class privilege is out. Sexual promiscuity is out. ...
04.11.2021 The Supremacy of Christ: Finding Ourselves in Jesus (Audio) Jesus isn’t a little pocket-size god we can push down in our pockets and pull out for good luck. By his resurrection, and through his ascension, Jesus is filling all things everywhere with himself so that all people can access ...
04.04.2021 What Does This Mean? An Easter Look at the Cross: The Death That Conquers Death (Audio) The Crucifixion is not a defeat to be overturned by Resurrection; the Crucifixion is a victory revealed by Resurrection. The cross was made by Christ to become the portal by which he invaded death to liberate the dead ones.
04.02.2021 What Does This Mean? A Lenten Look at the Cross: Looking Upon The Pierced One (Audio) When we see blood and water flowing from the side of the Pierced One, we do not see a postmortem medical phenomenon (though this the only thing the eyes of modernity seem to see). What we see is a miracle—a ...
03.28.2021 What Does This Mean? A Lenten Look at the Cross: The Overthrow of Satan (Audio) Palm Sunday is the yearly commemoration of the Triumphal Entry—Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem that set in motion the final showdown with the principalities and powers. When Jesus rode the donkey into Jerusalem at the beginning of Passover Week it was ...
03.21.2021 What Does This Mean? A Lenten Look at the Cross: The Axis of Love That Re-founds the World (Audio) In Cain the world was organized around an axis of power enforced by violence. Violent power became the organizing principle for human civilization. This is the story of Cain of Abel, the story of Romulus and Remus, the story Sméagol ...
03.14.2021 What Does This Mean? A Lenten Look at the Cross: The Beauty That Saves the World (Audio) In 1869 Fyodor Dostoevsky gave us the now famous line, "beauty will save the world." A hundred years later Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said that Dostoevsky's enigmatic phrase wasn't a riddle but a prophecy. And truly, the beauty that...
03.07.2021 What Does This Mean? A Lenten Look at the Cross: The Pinnacle of Divine Self-Disclosure (Audio) Being disguised under the disfigurement of an ugly crucifixion and death, Christ upon the cross is paradoxically the clearest revelation of who God is.
02.28.2021 What Does This Mean? A Lenten Look at the Cross: The Enduring Model of Discipleship (Audio) What is the enduring model of discipleship? It is to deny the primal, but fallen, instinct to prioritize our own security and self-interest, and to instead voluntarily choose to imitate what Jesus did on the cross. Thus the cross becomes ...
02.21.2021 What Does This Mean? A Lenten Look at the Cross: The Eternal Moment of Forgiveness (Audio) On Good Friday the sin of the world coalesced into a hideous singularity that upon the cross it might be forgiven en masse.
02.14.2021 The Beginning of the Good News: A Glimpse of the End (Audio) In all three Gospel accounts of the Transfiguration, the event is immediately preceded by Jesus telling his disciples that some of them will not see death until they have seen the kingdom of God present with power. And then six ...
02.07.2021 The Beginning of the Good News: We Need A Healer (Audio) Sin is better understood as a sickness of the soul than as a forensic legal problem. We need a healer more than we need a lawyer—we need a doctor. Though we might think of Jesus as a lawyer (advocate), it’s ...
01.31.2021 The Beginning of the Good News: The Son of God Goes Forth to War (Audio) One way of understanding Jesus’ ministry is that we are prisoners held captive in the castle of Satan. But Jesus is one who is stronger than the strong man, and he storms the castle, overpowers Satan, and carries us off ...
01.24.2021 The Beginning of the Good News: The Good News of God (Audio) Jesus came preaching the good news of God -- it was the proclamation of a new kind of kingdom, a kingdom where sins are forgiven and people are invited to live lives of generosity and peace. But why did some ...
01.17.2021 The Beginning of the Good News: Sub Ficus (Audio) When Jesus told Nathanael that he had seen him under the fig tree, Nathanael instantly dropped his skepticism about Jesus and confessed, "You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" What does is mean to be ...
01.10.2021 The Beginning of the Good News: Thunder In The Desert (Audio) The beginning of the Good News begins with Jesus' baptism. It's nothing less than an invasion from heaven -- a holy invasion of love and grace and peace and the newness from above!
01.03.2021 Songs of Messiah: The Light Shines In the Darkness (Audio) John's poetic prologue to his Gospel is one of the loftiest presentations of Christology in all the New Testament—it's also one of them of the most beautiful passages of Scripture. John's theopoetics reaches its crescendo when proclaims...
12.27.2020 Songs of Messiah: Simeon's Song (Audio) When Jesus was dedicated in the Temple, two old prophets -- Simeon and Anna -- spoke of the infant Jesus as Salvation and Redemption. Indeed, Jesus will save both Simeon and Anna, but neither of them knows how.
12.20.2020 Songs of Messiah: The Angels' Song (Audio) The theology of God’s salvation is contained in three enormous Christ-events: The Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection; or Christmas, Good Friday, Easter. The Incarnation launches everything and ultimately determines everything. Once the...

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