3 Requests for Lent

As we continue through Matthew’s Gospel on Sunday mornings during this season of Lent, we will actually be looking in on the final days before the death and resurrection of Christ. Our hope is that this will be a season of individual prayer, fasting, and devotion that serves to posture our hearts together before God with both humility and expectancy.

If you aren’t sure how to observe Lent, I would encourage you to take a look at our previous blog that contains some suggested resources. Also, if you’re late to the game, I hope you won’t let that stop you from joining us in observing this season. One church member just shared with me that they adjusted the dates that they would be observing Lent because of some obligations they had coming. That is okay. This isn’t meant to be burdensome it is meant to lead us to remember Jesus who took our burdens.

I am excited as we begin this season of Lent together, and I want to draw your attention back to three challenges that we have been rolling out this year:

To be a church that prays.
To be radically committed to increasingly submit all of life to the empowering presence and Lordship of Jesus Christ.
To be radically committed to identifying and reaching outsiders with the good news of Jesus Christ.

I’m asking that each person in the Redemption Church family engage in these three things during the season of Lent very intentionally. So, as you fast, carve out time to pray, read the Bible, and spend time in a devotional, here are a few very practical ways to unite with the whole church in this season also.

3 Requests:

Prayer – As you spend time in prayer during your daily workout, commute, or lunch break, please be sure to pray toward these three goals above. Maybe jot them down on a notecard to put in your Bible as a reminder.
Discipleship – As you’re in the Word each day, ask these questions of the text:
- What do we learn about God’s character and nature through this story?
- What stands out to you about the work of God through Jesus?
- What is our identity as a result of God’s work?
- Practically, how do we live in light of our new identity?
Invite – Identify 1 person you know who doesn’t know Jesus or is unchurched, and invite them to come with you on Sunday and take them to lunch after the service.

February 16, 2017

Lent at Redemption Church

We haven’t historically put a lot of emphasis on observing Lent at Redemption Church, but as we have been preaching through Matthew’s Gospel on Sunday mornings we have been turning our eyes very purposefully toward Jerusalem, the cross, and the resurrection of Christ our King. As mentioned before, we will be keeping pace with the story in Matthew as we are led through the seasons of Lent, the Passion of Christ, and Resurrection Sunday.

As Advent is to Christmas so Lent is to Resurrection Sunday. It is a time of preparation, and we encourage you to walk through this season with some intentionality together looking toward what lies at the end of the road; a bloody cross where Jesus died, but also an empty tomb from which our Savior rose again.

Lent begins on Wednesday, March 1st this year. Traditionally, Lent is a 40 day period of fasting, prayer and devotion towards remembering our brokenness and God’s work of redemption through the person and work of Jesus Christ. We aren’t looking to establish a bunch of rules and regulations about how to observe Lent this season, but we are inviting you to take the next couple of weeks to consider how you might best observe Lent as a family, with your missional communities, in DNA’s, and as a church.

Here are a few recommended resources:

Journey to the Cross – By Will Walker and Kendal Haug

“Journey to the Cross serves as a combined liturgical guide and devotional—presenting a call to worship, confessional, gospel reading, and daily devotional with application. This compact devotional guide meets the needs of Christians who want to prepare their hearts for Easter but don’t know how, and it answers the growing desire of many to be connected to the broader history of the church.”

Lent For Everyone: Matthew – Tom Wright

“For each day of Lent, there is a reading chosen from the Gospel designated for the year, plus a reflection by Tom Wright.”

You can also subscribe to this devotional material via the You Version Bible app.

God is on the Cross: Reflections on Lent and Easter – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“These forty stirring devotions will guide and inspire readers as they move thematically through the weeks of Lent and Easter, encountering themes of prayerful reflection, self-denial, temptation, suffering, and the meaning of the cross. Passages from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s letters and sermons provide special encouragement as readers prepare themselves spiritually for Holy Week and Easter Sunday. Supplemented by an informative introduction to Bonhoeffer’s life and a Scripture passage for each day of the season, these daily devotions are moving reminders of the true gift of Christ on the cross.”

Lenten Devotionals – Redeemer Presbyterian Church

“In 2011 Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York published 40 Lenten Devotions written by a variety of authors including Kathy Keller. Due to popular demand over successive years, RPC have continued to make the devotions available to help their people ‘prepare their hearts for Easter.”

This devotional material is also available through the You Version Bible app.

January 25, 2017January 25, 2017

How Should I Give?

At Redemption Church we talk a lot about “increasingly submitting ALL areas of life to the empowering presence and Lordship of Jesus Christ,” which is a definition of discipleship that I believe we ripped off from Jeff Vanderstelt. It’s a good definition. The question is, how can we submit ANY area of life to Jesus if we don’t submit our finances to Him?

Money has always been a tough thing for people to submit to Jesus. It was a struggle for people throughout the Bible, and it is still a struggle today. I would say that our culture’s obsession with money and possessions identifies this particular area of life as one of the first that needs to be dealt with as you and I learn to increasingly submit all of life to Jesus. It just seems like it would be tough to skip it and move on to something else in most of our lives.

I believe we have to start talking about all areas of our finances. We have to be asking questions not only about how and where we should give our money, but also of how and where we spend our money, save our money, and invest our money. Maybe we can get into more of those areas in the future. For now, let’s talk about generosity and giving.

Giving has to be the first part of active submission with our finances because, as Randy Alcorn says, “Giving breaks us out of orbit around our possessions. We escape their gravity, entering a new orbit around our treasures in heaven.” As Christians we know that we are suppose to give – many churchgoers feel the obligation to tithe – but I don’t think we talk enough about how giving is a blessing to the life of the giver. It sets us free from a slavery to money and possessions allowing us to savor the freedom of wholly trusting in God, who has given us everything and is in ultimate possession of all things. We won’t likely let Jesus into our spending, saving, and investing until we have experienced His empowering presence and Lordship in our giving.

Tithe

Since creation it has been clear that God created everything, and that everything is His. God blessed us with everything that we have in order to steward it toward blessing His creation, and ultimately glorifying God in His creation. Throughout the Old Testament God calls on His people to give their first fruits to Him as an act of trust, obedience, and worship.

The act of giving the first ten percent, tithe, to God before any other spending took place was an act that served to remind a forgetful people of Whose they were, Whose hands they were in, and that God could be trusted. We too are a forgetful people today.

Offering and Beyond

God actually called His people to give even more than the first ten percent. He often called for special offerings. These offerings were given over and above the ten percent tithe. One of my favorite examples is when God called Israel to give an offering while wandering in the wilderness. The offering was to go toward the construction of the Tabernacle, which was going to require some valuable materials. This people, slaves who fled overnight from Egypt, obeyed and gave all kinds of jewels, fine cloth, and other valuables. Where did a bunch of wandering slaves come up with all these goods? Before they fled Egypt, God told them to ask the Egyptian people for their valuables, and fearing the God of Israel the Egyptians granted the request. It just illustrates how God provides everything that He asks us to give.

Tithes and offerings are not all that God wanted His people to give. He also instructed Israel, as they settled and grew crops, to leave the edges of their fields at harvest for the passing sojourner who may need something to eat.

“As for the Rich”

God was always shepherding His people to be givers because God is generous, and His people were called to show the world what God was like.

That’s all Old Testament times, I know. So what does the New Testament look like? In the New Testament it would be hard to put a percentage on what God requires, but He is still shepherding His people to be crazy generous.

In Acts 2:45 we see the early church “selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” In several of the letters of the New Testament it is evident that the Apostles called the church to give toward advancing the gospel in their cities and in the global mission field.

Paul refers to the example of Jesus in 2 Corinthians 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

Paul charges Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:17-19, “As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.”

If anything, in the New Testament we see the followers of Jesus being called to become even more generous in their giving than the people of the Old Testament. Jesus asked the Rich Young Ruler and others to get rid of everything and follow Him as if submitting all of life to Jesus meant one hundred percent of everything, even one hundred percent of their money and possessions. Certainly, we can’t just sign over the entirety of our paychecks to the church right? Let’s talk guidelines.

Guidelines for Giving

Giving to the Local Church –

At Redemption Church we believe that it is best to give your tithes, your first ten percent, to the local church. Why give to the church first? Because it is the place of Christian community where we are going in together towards equipping and sending the body. We ask all our members to commit to give financially to the local church in this way for that purpose.

Giving Beyond Tithes –

We also encourage you to give an offering beyond your tithe. Tithe would be that first ten percent given to the local church, and an offering would be what you give over and beyond that to special purposes such as specific church projects, supporting global missionaries or other ministry support.

We would also suggest you leave something at the “edge of the field,” so to speak, so that you can be generous towards those in need who come your way unexpectedly. We suggest building some margin into your budget for these occasions. Dave Ramsey, founder of Financial Peace University – a really great course that we usually offer during the summer at Redemption Church – recommends working toward setting a budget that allows you to give 15 percent of your income away through tithes, offerings, and beyond.

Make a Plan –

Listen, I know that not everybody can do all of this at one time, but what I want to encourage is that you make a plan towards giving as God has called you, and act on it. If you don’t plan to give then you’re unlikely to ever get around to giving. How can you increasingly submit this area of life to the empowering presence and Lordship of Jesus Christ?

I would encourage you to pray through this with your family, with your DNA partners, and with your missional communities. If this is an area that is hard to submit, that is understandable. Please don’t be ashamed to seek counsel with your fellow church members, and leaders. No one wants anybody to feel ashamed or guilty. That is not the kind of giving God desires.

Paul says it well in 2 Corinthians 9:6-7, “The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

I would encourage you to come up with a giving plan, and start giving immediately. The invitation is not to obligation but to faithful obedience that will lead you to increasingly trust and take joy in Christ. He is exceedingly rich in riches beyond matters of money, and He can be one hundred percent trusted.

Here is how you can give to Redemption Church.

Here is what we have going on in the way of supporting Global Missions

January 19, 2017January 19, 2017

Thoughts Before the 2017 Presidential Inauguration

On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States of America. Without a doubt, he is unlike any President I have encountered in my lifetime. In times like these, it is natural to look backwards into our history to see how Presidents from the past have handled times of great transition and division. At the onset of Abraham Lincoln’s second term as President of the United States in the midst of a Civil War that had not yet come to an end, Lincoln is quoted as ending his inaugural address with these words: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

The election cycle of 2016 was in and of itself a time of division and contention. While we have certainly not been in a season of conflict like Abraham Lincoln was in when he uttered those words, we must without a doubt acknowledge the division that has bubbled to the surface of our society as a result of this election cycle. It has been reported that upwards of 80% of people who identify as Evangelical Christians voted for Trump. We also know that very few Minority Christians voted for Trump, thus exposing that Christians themselves were divided in this election not unlike our nation as a whole. Based on what I’ve seen and heard, I think many Evangelical voters were hoping to restore some sense of Christian values back into our society inasmuch as President-Elect Trump promised to make America great again.

I’m incredibly grateful to have been born in the United States of America. I have been afforded a lifestyle and myriad opportunities that many people in our world will never experience. We live in a nation that is undoubtedly prosperous, and the freedoms we enjoy are unbelievable when compared to much of the world. In Revelation 7:9-10 (ESV), we find these words:

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”

With all of that said, we as American Christians sometimes miss this truth: God doesn’t love political nations – He loves people. When the word “Nation” is used here in Revelation and throughout the New Testament, it’s not referring to a specific political entity. It is referring to people where they gather with specific cultural and linguistic identities.

Jesus didn’t die on the cross to save the nation of America: He died on the cross to save the people who live in America. God doesn’t make covenants with nations any longer. With the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, God established a new covenant and created a new entity. The new covenant is made with the people He saves, and the new entity He created was not a nation – it was the Church. It is time for the Church to embrace the fact that our standing in the world is not based on any power, prestige, or influence we wield in our societies and cultures and states and nations. Our standing in the world is based on the fact that Jesus died to set apart His people as a called-out group empowered, not to create Christian nations, but to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

In this linked article from Christianity Today, Ed Stetzer states the following:

“It is time for us to stop asking how we get our collective foot into our culture, and instead begin to ask God how we can be faithful to Him and our call to show and share the love of Jesus in a broken and hurting world. We need to remember, quoting an old preacher phrase, that “what happens in the church house is far more important than what happens in the White House.”

Jesus is not coming back on a donkey or an elephant. He is coming back on a white horse to bring victory. I, for one, just want to keep showing and sharing the love of Jesus in the midst of a changing culture until that moment comes. Do you?”

While we should be grateful for the freedoms we enjoy and while we should endeavor to be model citizens inasmuch as we do so to glorify our Father in Heaven (1 Cor. 10:31), let us not forget that we live in a deeply divided, deeply fallen, and deeply hurting nation. As Christians, we hold the answer to division, sin, and pain. The work ahead of us is incredibly difficult. Only Jesus can bring the peace and unity that Abraham Lincoln spoke about at his second inauguration.

Here’s the kicker for me though: it’s the church that has the obligation to steward the Gospel for the well-being of our city and state and nation. As God’s people were sent into exile in Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah uttered these words to the exiles from Israel in 29:7, “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” The welfare of our city and state and nation will only be found as the Gospel advances and people become part of God’s kingdom.

Church, our nation needs the Gospel. Church, our nation needs us to proclaim the truth of reconciliation, forgiveness, and healing. Church, our nation needs Jesus. Church, let’s get busy with things that will matter for eternity. America will one day cease to exist, but Jesus and His bride will not. Let me leave you with this reminder from Psalm 20:7, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.”

Check out this related 3 part series of blog posts: After the 2016 Presidential Election

December 6, 2016December 6, 2016

Christmas Tea

Redemption Women will be hosting our Inaugural Christmas Tea this Sunday, December 11th at 3 PM, at the Doris Building. Please join us as we celebrate this season of hope and joy together!

In true tea party tradition, we will have hot tea, scones, tea sandwiches, cookies, muffins, and more! Festivities will include an ornament exchange, games, door prizes, and fellowship.

Please plan to bring a wrapped ornament for the ornament exchange. However, if you are unable to bring an ornament for any reason, please do not let that hinder you from attending as there will be plenty of extra ornaments.

Childcare will be provided, but please RSVP quickly, so that we can accommodate the amount of children.

We hope you will join us for this joyful and whimsical celebration of the Christmas season!