What do you do when the leaders in charge are not the ones you wanted, and the Bible still says to submit to them? Most of us feel that tension every election season.

In this message, Pastor Josh Slater walks through Romans 13:1-7 and starts with a question underneath the politics: what does God say about authority? Paul was writing to Christians in the Roman Empire who had no vote and no voice, and he still told them to submit. Josh unpacks what that word really means (it is something you do, not something done to you), why God appoints rulers without endorsing them, and what government is actually for.

Then he takes on the hard part. When must a Christian disobey? Using Acts 5, Daniel 3, and two modern stories, he shows the only two situations where the answer is yes, and what it costs. From there the message turns personal: why paying taxes can be worship, why "we can hate policies, but we cannot hate people," and why praying for politicians beats complaining about them.

It ends where every Romans message ends, at the gospel. Jesus stood under Pilate's authority so we could be forgiven, and now all authority belongs to him.

Key scripture: Romans 13:1-7, because it is the clearest passage in the New Testament on how followers of Jesus live under earthly government.

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.

Someone hurt you. Maybe recently, maybe years ago, and some part of you still wants them to pay for it. So what does Jesus actually ask you to do with that feeling.

This episode walks through Romans 12:9-21, where Paul gives the church in Rome, and us, a picture of love with no fine print attached. Pastor Josh Slater starts with the foundation: our love for other people is never based on how they treat us, it is based on how God already treated us while we were still His enemies. From there the text gets specific. Love without pretending. Detest what is actually evil, not just what bothers you personally. Take the lead in honoring people before they have earned it. Bless the people who are working against you instead of cursing them back. And when someone genuinely wrongs you, release the right to get even, because vengeance was never yours to collect in the first place.

The sermon does not stop at good advice. It lands on a promise: evil does not get the final word unless you let it turn you into something evil too, but good, real and costly good, has the power to overcome it. That is the same confidence that put Christ on a cross to absorb evil instead of returning it.

Key scripture: Romans 12:9-21, closing with Paul's summary of the whole passage: do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.

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.

Ever feel like you're just supposed to try harder to be a good Christian? Paul says that's not the plan at all.

In Romans 12:1-8, Paul makes the turn from eleven chapters of theology into practical instruction, and he starts in a surprising place: not effort, but mercy. In this message, Pastor Josh Slater walks through what it means to offer your whole life to God as a "living sacrifice," why staying humble is the hinge everything else swings on, and why the gifts God gave you were never meant for you to keep to yourself. Along the way, he unpacks the difference between being "conformed" to the world and "transformed" by the renewing of your mind, and makes the case that worship isn't something you do on Sunday morning, it's your whole life.

Key scripture: Romans 12:1, "Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true worship."

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

If you have ever wondered whether God gives up on people who keep failing him, or worse, on youpersonally, Romans 11 was written for exactly that question.

In this episode, Pastor Josh Slater works through the entire chapter in one sitting. He covers why Israel'srejection of Jesus was not the end of God's plan for them, what it actually means to be grafted in like a wildolive branch, why Paul turns immediately and warns Gentile believers against spiritual pride, and what thedisputed phrase all Israel will be saved does and does not mean. He also gets personal, sharing what it tookhim twelve years to finally accept a call to ministry he knew was real, and how that story reshaped the wayhe reads Paul's closing doxology.

Key Scripture: Romans 11:1-36, Paul's answer to whether God has permanently set Israel aside, and the theological hinge for the rest of the letter.

New sermons from Prairie Valley Church drop most weeks. Find all our links athttps://link.content360.io/PVC and subscribe so you never miss one.

Outline and Transcript

If you've ever wondered whether you're doing enough to be right with God, more church, more giving, more effort, this episode is for you. In this message from Romans 9:30-10:21, Pastor Josh Slater walks through Paul's hardest word to a religious audience: Israel had every spiritual advantage, the law, the covenants, the promises, and still missed a rightstanding with God, because they were chasing it through their own effort instead of receiving it by faith. Josh unpacks what Paul means when he calls Jesus "the end of the law," why zeal for God isn't the same as knowledge of God, and why two simple things, confessing Jesus as Lord and believing He rose from the dead, are the whole path to salvation. It's a message or the person exhausted by trying to be good enough, and for the person who has given up because they think they're too far gone.

Key scripture: Romans 9:30-10:21.

Paul argues that righteousness has never come from human effort, even devoted, sincere, religious effort, but only through faith in Jesus Christ, and that this offer is open toabsolutely everyone.

New sermons from Prairie Valley Church drop every week.

Find all our links athttps://link.content360.io/PVC and subscribe so you never miss one.

Outline and Transcript

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.

Outline and Transcript