Expository preaching from a messy, hopeful San Francisco church.
Sunday teaching from Redemption Church in San Francisco, captured live with the welcome, the announcements and the sermon intact. The current run walks slowly through 1 Corinthians under the title Messy Church, treating Paul's letter as a mirror for congregations that are still works in progress.
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This is the Sunday audio from Redemption Church, a multi-ethnic, intergenerational congregation in the heart of San Francisco. The episodes are not edited into a tidy lecture. They begin where the service begins: a greeting, a hand raised by a first-time guest, a gift handed across the aisle. Chris Davis, one of the pastors, does much of that welcoming. He calls the building an imperfect place with leaks in the ceiling, and the people in it imperfect too. He repeats a line about none of us being meant to exist alone, and about the need for a place to be known and to know others. Announcements are part of the record. One episode makes an earnest case for eight parking team volunteers, noting that parking is at a premium there. Another mentions tote bags from Ronnell Roberts. Then the tone turns. The main body of each episode is sustained exposition, working through a passage rather than around it. For much of the current stretch that passage comes from 1 Corinthians, in a series titled Messy Church. The preaching insists it is a letter, not merely a book, written by the Apostle Paul to a congregation in first-century Corinth. Paul had spent about eighteen months there watching people come to faith before moving on. What he wrote back addressed a church distracted by a busy, eclectic city: favoritism creeping in, sin left unaddressed while everyone stayed quiet, confusion about leaders and about Paul himself. Recent titles trace that arc — a call to holiness, how to disagree well, sexuality and the body, marriage, a vision for discipleship. The application is rarely abstract. One message asks whether the loudest voices in a listener's life are producing efficiency and productivity or patience and kindness, and whether political disagreement gets handled graciously or by steamrolling. Another prays for power to be countercultural in that city. The Bay Area is a constant reference point, described from the pulpit as topping every list of the most unchurched places in the country. That framing gives the series its urgency: if the church lives out its purpose, the argument goes, families and individuals are changed and more people say yes. The register stays warm and direct, closer to a conversation with a room than a broadcast. Sentences build, restate the point in fresh words, and land. Over 457 episodes, the archive amounts to a long record of one congregation reading Scripture in public and asking what it demands on Monday.
Made for: Listeners who want full-length expository preaching rather than devotional soundbites, especially those working through 1 Corinthians or interested in how a church teaches in a largely unchurched city. It suits people who like hearing a whole service, announcements and all.
What sets it apart: Rather than trimming to the sermon, these recordings keep the welcome, the first-time-guest gifts and the parking team appeal, so the teaching arrives attached to the actual congregation it was written for.
Redemption Church San Francisco exists to bring the good news of the Gospel to this great city that we love. We believe that Jesus redeems people, renews life, reconciles relationships and is actively restoring the world.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Redemption Church San Francisco makes scripture practical through locally grounded sermons on discipleship, leadership, identity, and life together.
Redemption Church San Francisco turns biblical passages into direct sermons about how a congregation forms its habits, relationships, and leaders. The prevailing format is expository preaching, with sustained attention to 1 Corinthians alongside sermons from 1 Peter and Luke.
Corinth's messy church has a way of showing up in your group chat.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A pastoral case for discipleship as the countercultural work of being formed by Jesus together.
Redemption Church frames discipleship as formation: the question is which voices are shaping a church in San Francisco, and whether its relationships are cultivating the character of Jesus.
A sermon on 1 Corinthians that frames leadership through service, Paul's suffering, and the church's shared calling.
Leadership is framed here by what a servant is willing to give away: rights, status, and power turned toward people with less of it. Working through 1 Corinthians, the sermon presents Christian leaders as servants of Christ, then follows Paul through persecution, suffering, and…
A grounded sermon that turns church messiness into a call to shared gifts, unity, and life built on Jesus.
The sermon begins with messiness, treating Corinth's divided loyalties as an entry point into identity, devotion, and the pressures on faith in an eclectic Bay Area setting.
A warm pastoral sermon on identity in Christ amid the mess of church life.
Maturing in the Gospel frames Christian maturity around the fragile question of identity. Starting with Paul's divided Corinthian church, where loyalties cluster around Paul, Apollos, and Peter, the sermon moves toward a steadier account of gospel esteem: Christians are new…
A forceful sermon on temptation, spiritual weariness, and renewed surrender.
Redemption Church San Francisco frames temptation as a live campaign against the soul, giving spiritual conflict the weight of fear, fatigue, and physical danger through a World War II bomber story.
A Christmas sermon presents Mary's surrender as a model for Advent waiting.
Advent waiting is treated here as more than seasonal anticipation. The sermon frames Christmas around both Christ's first coming and his promised return, then narrows to Mary, whose ordinary day is interrupted by God and whose surrender becomes the pattern for faithful waiting.
Two Bible translators unpack Scripture's hardest passages, from Revelation's 666 to the Witch of Endor.
Live sermons with Easter-shaped urgency.
This Advent sermon from Redemption Church San Francisco explores how to wait for Christ's return through the lens of Mary's story in Luke 1:26-38.
A sermon series exploring the struggle to fully surrender control over money and other areas of life to Jesus.
A sermon from Redemption Church on submitting every area of life to the lordship of Jesus Christ, based on 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.
A speaker at Redemption Church San Francisco opens with the story of Zach, a 21-year-old who overdosed after moving to the city with dreams of a better life.
Pastor Chris Davis preaches on 1 Corinthians 15:35–49, presenting resurrection life as “a work of God.” Paul’s seed image describes death before new life, and Davis applies it to transformation beyond human effort.
A sermon on the gift of marriage based on 1 Corinthians 7:1-16, delivered at Redemption Church in San Francisco.
Pastor Chris Davis delivers a sermon on John 20:24-29, addressing Thomas's doubt and the concept of unfinished business in faith.
A sermon series on 1 Corinthians, focusing on how the gospel transforms messy people and churches, with a specific look at sexual purity from 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.
A sermon from Redemption Church in San Francisco on 1 Corinthians 6:1-11, encouraging believers to disagree well and live as the family of God.
A sermon on 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 about the call to holiness and church discipline within a messy church context.
Redemption Church San Francisco preaches 1 Corinthians 4:14-21 as a call to discipleship in "The Messy Church," using Paul’s language of "my beloved children" and "be imitators of me." Nate argues that a secular, individualistic culture and churchy surface relationships can leave Christians shaped more by Instagram, TikTok, and "countless guides" than by Jesus.
Paul says leaders in God's house are "servants of Christ" and "stewards of the mysteries of God."
A pastor at Redemption Church San Francisco continues a series through 1 Corinthians, preaching on chapter 3, verses 10 through 23, titled Building a Firm Foundation.
Pastor Nate of Redemption Church San Francisco continues a series through 1 Corinthians titled The Messy Church, preaching on chapter 3, verses 1 through 9, under the title Maturing in the Gospel.
A sermon from Redemption Church in San Francisco on submitting every area of life to Jesus, based on 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.
A sermon series exploring the tension between loving Jesus and holding onto control over money and other areas of life.
A sermon concluding the 'I Am' series in John, focusing on Jesus as the true vine and the call to abide in him.