Pastors Blog Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Temple, Texas BLOG: Pastors Blog http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/ Celebrating the Triumph of Jesus and the Gospel Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/celebrating-the-triumph-of-jesus-and-the-gospel http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/celebrating-the-triumph-of-jesus-and-the-gospel November 1st is the Christian holiday known as All Saints' Day.  It is the celebration of the victory of Christians who are united by faith with King Jesus in His victory over sin, death, and Satan.  The word "saints" is the common term the New Testament uses to describe all Christians (not a special class of super Christians).  We often sing the hymn For All the Saints which describes the joyful progression of Christians in all ages as they march with their victorious King toward heaven.

Just as Christmas Eve is the night before Christmas, so the night before All Saints' Day is called All Hallows' Eve ("Hallow" means "holy" and is another word for "saint") which has been contracted to it's modern name, Halloween.  In 1517, Martin Luther chose this day, October 31st, to nail his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg.  This event is commonly viewed as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation which was a time marked by a return to a robust delight in the overwhelmingly wonderful free grace of the gospel.  Hence, Halloween is also Reformation Day.

So Halloween is a day for Christians to delight in the gospel, the good news that King Jesus has triumphed over the powers of darkness and put them to shame.  Halloween has traditionally been a day when the powers of evil are mocked because Jesus has gained the victory.

“He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”

 -Colossians 2:15 

 

“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”  

-Romans 16:20

 

“He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.””

-Psalms 2:4-6 


All too often Christians approach Halloween with great fear - fear of the demonic, fear of the evils "out there" that might get our children.  This often causes us to retreat into hiding and isolation.  But we follow an all-powerful King, who is Lord over all, who by His death and resurrection has defeated the powers of evil, and who tells us to be bold and courageous and take comfort in the fact that He has "overcome the world" (John 16:31).  Yes, the day has been twisted and distorted, and much of its meaning has been lost on our culture.  But we who know the King should engage our world without fear.

On Reformation Day, yes, on Halloween, let's take time to delight in the gospel.  Let's not retreat in fear, but take the opportunity provided on this day to interact with our neighbors who come knocking on our doors.  Don't sacrifice any cats.  Don't worship demons.  But maybe give out some candy and engage in conversation with your neighbors.

If you want some further resources to reflect Christianly on this day, let me highly recommend two articles found on the Ransom Fellowship website that you can access by clicking the links below.

Halloween: Magic and Monsters: Discernment Exercise

Halloween: A Distinctly Christian Holiday

 

]]> Spirituality Starts with Our Worship Together Wed, 20 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/spirituality-starts-with-our-worship-together http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/spirituality-starts-with-our-worship-together Do you ever feel like your personal devotional life is an ongoing cycle of fits and starts that leaves you discouraged?  Does the idea of family worship sound exhausting or unattainable?  How many times have you gotten re-invigorated with new motivation and formed a plan for yourself or your family only to skid into the dirt shortly after take-off?  How many promising new devotional books have you begun only to stall after 10 pages?

This important area of our spiritual lives can become discouraging because of both our plans and our perceptions.  We often realize our deficiencies in this area and then embrace unrealistic plans - almost as if we're trying to make up for 10 years of bad quiet times or family devotions.  Early in our marriage, while in seminary, I decided at one point that I was going to translate a passage of the Bible from the original languages every day and write a comprehensive Bible study for my wife and I.  That didn't last long and I felt discouraged.  Have you had a similar experience?

Our perceptions are also the source of discouragement at times.  If someone asks how you are doing spiritually, or you reflect on this yourself, do you instinctively divide the number of quiet times you've had that week by 7 days and give yourself a grade?  Even if you don't get that scientific, it's likely that you in some ways base your perception of how God feels about you on how disciplined your devotional life is.  This can only lead to pride (if you're on a good streak) or discouragement.  We all need to be reminded often that our standing before God is based entirely upon the performance of Jesus, who always obeyed for us and died to pay for our sins.  He always meditated on God's Word and sought communion with His Father, for us.  And this Jesus is also committed (more than we are) to our spiritual growth.  Being assured that we are loved and secure, we then desire to commune with God in His Word and through prayer because we want to enjoy Him more.

If you are discouraged or lack direction in this area of life, let me encourage you toward what might be a paradigm shift if you've been living in this individualistic culture of ours:  Spirituality starts with corporate worship.

Think about this:  The Psalms that we are studying this summer, the portion of the Bible most used as the basis for prayer and worship, were written for God's gathered people to use together in corporate worship.  That was the focal point of spiritual life.  Most ancient Israelites did not have a scroll of Isaiah sitting on their bedside table.  In fact, for most of the history of the church, individual Christians have not had their own personal copies of God's Word.

Don't hear what I'm not saying.  I'm NOT saying you don't need to read your Bible on your own.  That would be a terrible act of neglect when you are able to hold God's Word in your hands and read it yourself.  Of course, you should read your Bible and pray daily, alone and with your family.

But when devotions seem daunting or you wonder what you should do, let our worship together on Sundays be the foundation from which everything else flows.  Delight in the fact that you get to participate in the worship service where God meets with His people.  Then, work on adding to that.  Read God's Word - yourself, and with your family.  Do something manageable.  Work through a book and read a chapter a day, or part of a chapter.  Then spend a few minutes thinking about / discussing what you've read, and pray about it.  Hang on to your bulletins from church and use those during your devotions during the week.  View them online ahead of time to prepare for worship together.  

Don't be discouraged, but delight in the fact that "he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

]]> The Depth of Sin and the Depth of Mercy Thu, 07 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/the-depth-of-sin-and-the-depth-of-mercy http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/the-depth-of-sin-and-the-depth-of-mercy The Depth of Sin and the Depth of Mercy

Part of what it means to have "Gospel-centered worship" is that we take our sin seriously.  Why do we take time each week to focus on our sin?  One reason is because God takes sin seriously.  Another reason is because it is only when we see the depth of our sin and what we have been rescued from, that we fully appreciate the grace and wonder of the gospel.  Simply put, to the extent that we minimize or sanitize our sin, we rob the gospel of its richness.  Grace is really amazing because our sin is atrocious.

One of the most common ways that the Bible describes our sinful rebellion against God is through the metaphor of sexual immorality.  God is the faithful husband to His people, and the people of God are depicted as an unfaithful spouse who has run after other lovers.  As we heard in Rev. Shaynor Newsome's recent sermon from Hosea, God in His mercy receives back His adulteress people who have been unfaithful.  That is amazing grace.

Another metaphor of our sinful rebellion is that of the prodigal son from Luke 15 who loves the father's possessions but wants nothing to do with the father.  In fact, he wishes the father dead.  After the son wastes away his share of his father's inheritance, he tries to work his way back into the father's favor as a slave.  But the father runs to the son, throws his arms around his neck, puts a robe around him, a ring on his finger, and shoes on his feet.  The father will not welcome him back as a slave, but as a son.

These are two beautiful metaphors that should melt our hearts as we see the mercy of God toward sinners like us.  But part of believing the gospel means that we identify ourselves as both the unfaithful bride and the prodigal son.  We must admit the radical nature of our sin to experience the radical nature of God's grace.

This Sunday, during our time of confession, we will be singing a new song by Derek Webb called Wedding Dress.  This song highlights these two metaphors of the gospel and calls us to identify with the unfaithful wife and the prodigal son.

For some of us, this song may be a bit shocking because it calls us to confess that we are a "whore".  That is a strong term that is often used with evil and hurtful intent.  It is an uncomfortable term in social settings and not one we are excited to hear on the lips of our children.  And yet, before we take a pietistic stance toward such language, we must remember something.  This word is used by God countless times throughout the Bible.  You cannot read through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, or Hosea without encountering it numerous times.  And God expects that we preach these texts and read them in church and in our families.  And as we do so, we explain to our children why God levels the charge of whoredom against us - because He has loved us as a husband, but we have run after other lovers.  And God, in His infinite mercy, welcomes us back.

Are we singing this song for shock value?  Not in the sense that we think it is hip and edgy to use vulgar language in church.  (But remember, if we think we should avoid the term to maintain some sense of holiness, we are claiming a higher morality than the God who gave us His Word.)  In another sense, yes, we are singing it for shock value.  The term "whore" is shocking.  And that is why God uses it.  He wants us to be shocked by the nature of our sin.  He wants us to see how unbelievably awful it is that we have abandoned our spouse in search of other lovers.  He wants it to appear astonishingly wicked to us.  Only then will we apprehend the depth of His mercy to us in Christ Jesus.  Only then will the full force of the gospel penetrate our hearts and melt us with His love.

Another word that appears in this song is the word "bastard".  This too is a word that can be used in a vulgar manner to bring hurt to others.  But we are not using a cuss word in church.  The term is a technical term that refers to an illegitimate child - one born out of wedlock.  Believing the gospel means acknowledging that we were born in sin (Psalm 51).  But the amazing grace of the gospel is that it is illegitimate children like us whom God the Father welcomes as sons and daughters, putting a ring on our finger.

The only way we will become a community of people who are "unshockable" and ready to welcome sinners of every hue just as Jesus did, is if we are shocked by OUR OWN sin.  When we see the depth of our own sin, we will not be surprised by the nature of anyone else's sin.  And when we apprehend the depth of the mercy of God necessary to restore us as His bride and sons and daughters . . . then, and only then will we believe that the gospel is "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes" (Romans 1:16) - including the worst of sinners.

]]> Summer Reading that will Shape Us Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/summer-reading-that-will-shape-us http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/summer-reading-that-will-shape-us As a church community, we want to always be reading things that will shape us, sharpen us, and equip us to live as a community in mission, rooted in the gospel.  We have many book recommendations on our website in various categories.  Let me encourage you to put some of these on your summer reading list.  I especially wanted to highlight two books that will be shaping our community this summer.

Many of us will be reading Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands by Paul Tripp.  This book does an excellent job of showing how every Christian is a person in need of change who is called and equipped to be involved in God's work of sanctification (growth) in the lives of others.  Personal ministry is something that every Christian is called to.  Tripp does a marvelous job of helping us see how the Bible is to be used in our ministry to others.  Rather than being an encyclopedia or cookbook to flip through to find the recipe for helping someone with a particular issue (relationships, depression, lust, work, etc.) it is a grand story of redemption with Jesus at the center.  Our task is to help people see themselves in that story and point them to Jesus as the answer to every issue they may be dealing with.  Tripp calls us back to the gospel and helps us to see the heart and it's response to Jesus as the root of every type of conflict we encounter.  You can find this book here.

In our Redeemer Gathering meetings we will be going through a teaching series by Tim Keller called gospel in life: Grace Changes Everything.  There is an accompanying study guide that you can find here.  This series helps us see how the gospel should transform our hearts, and then our communities, and then through transformed communities, the world.  To learn more about this series and watch a brief trailer, click here.

Happy reading!

]]> What's Redeemer Doing Over the Summer? Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/what-s-redeemer-doing-over-the-summer http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/what-s-redeemer-doing-over-the-summer We had a great series of vision meetings.  If you missed them, you can listen to the audio by clicking Sermons and scroll to Vision Meetings.

Now the question is: What's next?

A launch team has been assembled which will be working over the summer to get us ready to start our worship services in the early fall.  This is incredibly exciting!

In the meantime, the growing Redeemer community will be getting together many Sunday evenings for what we call the "Redeemer Gathering".  This is the best way to connect to the church plant and to learn what Redeemer is all about.  It's a relaxed time of singing, prayer, teaching, and fellowship.  We will be going through a series by Tim Keller called "gospel in life: Grace Changes Everything" which will continue to shape what Redeemer will be and do.

"But what if I'm not sure I want to be a part of Redeemer?  Should I still come?"  Of course you should!  The best way to explore our community and discern whether it is the right place for you is to visit us and spend some time with us.  The Redeemer Gathering is a place for people who are sold on the idea of being a part of Redeemer as well as for those who just want to find out what the church is all about.

We believe a real community can only be formed by spending time together.  So, in addition to the Redeemer Gatherings, we will also get together for parties, barbecues, pub nights, coffee, etc.  

We love being together and we would love to have you join us!

Keep an eye on the Calendar and don't hesitate to contact us (info@redeemerprestemple.org or 254-760-4246) to find out more about what's going on with Redeemer.

 

]]> What Is Worship Really All About? Wed, 26 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/what-is-worship-really-all-about http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/what-is-worship-really-all-about All churches have a "worship service", but why?  Why does Redeemer's worship look the way it does?

Here are some thoughts on what we call our "Philosophy of Worship" at Redeemer.

Worship is what we were created for.  Everyone worships something.  Christian worship (deriving from “worth-ship”) means declaring the infinite worth and the gracious redeeming work of God.  It is glorifying God for who He is and what He has done.  That is what is taking place in heaven right now and it is what the Church will do for all of eternity.  For this reason, worship is at the center of all that we do.  It is what everything else in the life of the church revolves around.  We study the Bible so that we can know who God is in all of His wonder and the exceeding greatness of all that His redemption entails and worship Him for it.  And we do this as a community being continually shaped by the Gospel. 

Worship gives us a place to express the whole range of human emotions – from great joy, to mourning, sorrow over sin, and thankfulness to the God who redeems.  God doesn’t expect us to check our emotions at the door.  But worship is also primarily a formative experience where God actually shapes our hearts and desires to conform us into the image of His Son.

Our Worship will be God-Centered

Worship is about God and His glory.  Worship must always be God-centered.  He is the main actor, the main event.  We worship because God is worthy of worship, it is what we were created for (Psalm 19, 148), and because it gives us a foretaste of heavenly worship.  (Rev. 4-5).  In corporate worship, heaven and earth united.

 

The Structure of Worship

The word “liturgy” may make some people feel uncomfortable.  It may conjure up ideas of lifeless formality or words without meaning.  But the word - “liturgy” – simply means the “work of the people” and refers to an “order of worship”.  EVERY church and EVERY worship service has a “liturgy”.  Some more basic, some more detailed.

 

There is not just one biblical order for worship.  But the question we must always ask is: “Why do we do what we do what we do in worship?  Why do we do it when we do it?  What structures our service and what does the flow communicate?”

 

At Redeemer, worship is ordered around the Gospel.

 

Gospel-Centered Worship

What does it mean to order worship around the gospel?  It means that weekly corporate worship is a “drama of redemption”.  It is the truths of the Gospel lived out before us week by week.  Worship is a drama which has actors, a set, and a story or plot line.

The plot line revolves around a key theological term – “covenant”.  God’s covenant promise runs through the whole Bible – “I will be your God and you will be my people.”

Worship is a weekly covenant renewal ceremony where God assures us of His love, forgiveness, and presence as we trust in His provision of Jesus Christ for us.  So in worship, God is seen to be the great Giver.  In worship, we receive gifts from God.

God is the main actor who enters into conversation with His people.  Worship is dialogical, which means it is a conversation between God and His people.  God, the main actor, initiates this conversation just as He initiates grace in the Gospel of salvation.  In worship, God speaks and we respond.

In the Call to Worship, the Sovereign Lord summons His people into His presence to worship Him.

In the Invocation, God’s people ask for God’s presence and Holy Spirit to help us worship.

After God tells us who He is, His people hear or sing of God’s worth or holiness.  We then respond by telling God who we are in confession of our sins.

God then assures those who repent of their sins of His pardon and forgiveness.  In turn, God’s people respond to His grace with gratitude.

God tells of His provision and we respond by bringing our needs to Him.

God gives His Word and we respond to that Word.

 

Our Worship will be Word-Centered

God’s Word will fill our worship.  The “means” God uses to communicate His redemption to us, to give us His grace are His Word, the sacraments, and prayer.  Preaching is not just words about God, but God speaking to us!  The sacraments – baptism and Lord’s Supper – are a “visible word” through which God communicates the Gospel in symbols.  The sacraments communicate to all our senses.

 

Preaching is the means God uses to bring life to dead bones and to grow us.  Preaching is how God proclaims the Gospel bringing people to faith, repentance, and new life.

The sacraments confirm the Gospel and nurture our faith.  The Lord’s Supper is how God feeds His people with Jesus.  In the Lord’s Supper, Christ is actually present to our faith.  We “taste and see that the Lord is good.”  The Lord’s Supper is one of the primary means God has given for our spiritual growth and so we will celebrate it every week.

The Lord’s Supper symbolizes not only communion with God, but with each other.  It reminds us that we are a body.  Christianity is not a private affair, but takes place in community. 

In worship, God re-orients our hearts through His Word.  We are reminded week by week of what is true reality as God speaks to us authoritatively.  Therefore, our worship will be saturated with God’s Word through Scripture readings, prayers, and songs.

 

Worship is a Community Event

In worship, God REALLY is present.  He REALLY meets with His people.  And not only adults.  The church is a community of all ages.  God wants to meet with our children.  So our goal is to have our children involved in worship as early as possible.  Sure, there will be much that they do not fully understand.  But worship is not just a place to gather information.  It is a place for transformation and covenant renewal and there is much that even children can understand and participate in.  God speaks to His people, renews His covenant, calls us to confession, assures us of His grace.  Our children need this!

 

Our Worship will be Intelligible

We will have a formal liturgy and we will use creeds.  Our preaching will be deep, theological, and expository.  Yet, it should not be unnecessarily difficult for people to understand what is taking place in our worship services.  Children, new Christians, and those exploring Christianity should be able to understand what we are doing.

Much will be foreign and new.  But we need to communicate what we do and why.

This does not mean that we will dumb things down, but simply strive to make them accessible.  Throughout the Bible, the worship of God’s people is supposed to take outsiders into consideration.  In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul commands that outsiders be able to understand what we are saying.

 

Worship is an Evangelistic Event

Worship is one of the main evangelistic opportunities of the church.  The technical term for this is doxological evangelism – proclaiming the truth of the gospel through worship.

“Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods.”  (Psalm 96:3-4 ESV)

In worship, God’s people declare in the midst of the nations God’s glory, His holiness, and His grace, calling everyone to repentance, faith, and worship.

Worship is at the center of the life of Redeemer.  We believe that God really shows up in a way He does not elsewhere.  THIS is the place God has said He will meet with His people.  This is where God communicates His grace to us.  Worship is where God gives us what we need most . . . Himself.  In worship we receive Jesus as He gives Himself to us in His Word and the sacraments.  God communicates to us and we respond in songs and prayers of adoration, confession, and praise.  Worship pumps the Gospel through the church body week after week, so that we are empowered to love and serve our neighbors and our city.

 

]]> Some thoughts on Redeemer's worship music Wed, 26 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/some-thoughts-on-redeemer-s-worship-music http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/some-thoughts-on-redeemer-s-worship-music Often the first question we ask about a church is: "What is their worship like?"  And by this, we usually mean "is it contemporary or traditional?  Do they use guitars or an organ?"  These are fine questions to ask, but there are more important ones too, like "What is worship really all about?"  Before you read this post, let me encourage you to read the previous post entitled, "What is Worship Really All About?" because what we believe worship to be should influence our practice of it.

 

O.K., you read the other post, right?

 

Now, here are some thoughts on Redeemer's philosophy of worship music.

      Our worship should be characterized by both reverence and great joy. 

 The primary function of our worship music is to assist the congregation as we together respond to God in various ways through singing.  The goal of worship music is corporate singing.  Therefore, our music must always enable, not detract from, corporate singing.  Music should aid and facilitate God’s people singing to Him.  It is not a show, but rather accompaniment. It should not be overpowering. 

Our worship liturgy follows a cycle which takes us through the gospel week by week.  Worship is dialogical, which means that it is a conversation, initiated by God, in which He speaks to His people and we respond.  The people must always be given a voice to respond.  Corporate singing, prayers, and readings give the people a voice to respond.  When God calls us to worship, we respond by joyfully praising God for His excellence and worth.  When God convicts us of our sin through His law, we respond in confession.  When God assures us of His pardon, we respond in grateful and joyful thanksgiving.  When God showers His grace upon us through the Word and sacraments, we respond to what He has given us.

The hymnbook which God originally gave to His people was the Psalter.  (Since God has given us inspired psalms, we will work to incorporate them into our singing.)  The psalms are filled with the whole range of human emotions.  God does not expect us to turn off our emotions in worship, but rather to bring them to Him.  The psalms, and so all music that we sing, give opportunity for expressing various emotions.  Yet the primary function of the psalms is not expressive, but formative.  God wants to spiritually shape us and mature us through what we sing.  Often we may not feel the things we are singing and might think this is hypocritical.  But God puts on our lips the very words He desires to actually shape our hearts and motives in the process of our worship. 

While worship should be a place where we express our emotions, those emotions must flow from and be a response to various truths about God, His character, His law, our sin, and His grace and His redemption.  We should not have to “work up” our emotions.  Some tunes can manipulate our emotions and yet be void of any deep theological truths which drive those emotions. 

 

Transcendence and Immanence

Worship must reflect the transcendence – “otherness”, holiness – of God.  And it must also reflect the immanence of God – the fact of His nearness to us in Christ.  God is wholly other, but He is also Immanuel – God with us.  Since God is holy and awesome, loving, merciful, and kind, we worship Him with both reverence and great joy.

 

Ancient and Indigenous

Our worship must seek to be both ancient and indigenous.  By ancient, we mean that our worship is rooted in the long history of God’s people.  Through the ages, God has gifted His Church with wonderful hymns.  We want to draw on the rich treasures God has given to His Church and find joy in being a part of a long, continuous stream of believers that has been flowing for thousands of years. 

By indigenous, we mean that our worship must also take into account our particular context – our geographic location and our place in history.  God has always contextualized His communication to His people.  The Bible was written in the common language of its recipients and took into account the culture in which they lived.  The Incarnation of Jesus is the ultimate example of contextualization.  God became a man to live among men.  He became a Jewish man amongst Jewish people and lived in their culture.  The church’s worship must take into account the culture in which it finds itself.  We must acknowledge our context, the time and place where God has put us to live, and embrace the fact that God is still at work through gifted writers and musicians.

Our worship music will be theologically rich and we will strive for excellence, realizing that our ultimate worth and acceptance is not based on our ability to perform for God, but on the fact that Jesus performed perfectly on our behalf.

-We will draw on rich hymns of the past, largely from the Trinity Hymnal.

-Redeemer will also seek to incorporate the psalms into our singing. 

-We will utilize excellent older hymn texts that have been given new life with newer tunes and make use of the great work being done by others, such as Indelible Grace/RUF and Red Mountain Church.

-We will seek to incorporate the best of the new hymnody being produced today that is both theologically accurate and musically excellent.

 

Instrumentation

While we expect our worship music and instrumentation to develop over time, our basic core instrumentation will seek to include guitar(s), piano, violin, bass, and drums (djembe or congas, and possibly a “subdued and not overpowering” drum set).

 

 

]]> What Does Redeemer's Logo Symbolize? Thu, 29 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/what-does-redeemer-s-logo-symbolize- http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/what-does-redeemer-s-logo-symbolize-

A logo is a symbol.  Every symbol communicates something.  What is Redeemer Temple's logo intended to communicate?

Obviously, it is a cross that identifies us as a Christian church.  It connects us with a long church tradition, and particularly our Presbyterian heritage.  Yet, it is also a tree sprouting new life which symbolizes that with roots in history, there is ongoing life for today and the future.

Theologically, the tree and the cross go together.  The Tree of Life introduced in Genesis 2:9 is what we were made for.  Adam and Eve and their descendants were made to eat from this tree.  After their rebellion against God, they were cut off from this Tree of Life (Genesis 3:22-24).

Ever since then, we long to get back to that tree.  It is really what the Bible is about - God's people being restored to the Tree of Life with all that it represents.

But God placed the cherubim and a flaming sword in the garden of Eden to guard the way to the Tree of Life.

The only way back to the Tree of Life is to go through the sword.  And we are unable to do this.

But Jesus went through the sword for His people when He died to pay for our sin and secure our redemption.  The only way to the Tree of Life is through the cross of Jesus Christ, the only Redeemer.  So the cross and the tree are integrally related.

The Christian hope for the future is that Jesus will establish the new heavens and the new earth.  In Revelation 22:1-5 we are told that at the end of the story God's people will once again have access to the Tree of Life with its leaves which are "for the healing of the nations."  This is a picture of perfect redemption and restored communion with God . . . and it is only possible because of the cross of Christ.

 

]]> Why Plant a Church? Sun, 18 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/why-plant-a-church- http://www.redeemerprestemple.org/why-plant-a-church- "What do you do?"

"I'm the pastor of a new church plant."

[Silence]

This answer is usually met with puzzled looks and often the next question that follows is: "So where is your building."

And being in the initial phase of starting a church, we don't have a building.  We are still gathering people to be a part of a new church.

The idea of planting a church is an unfamiliar concept for many folks.

But aside from the fact that the process of starting a church is a foreign concept to most people, often the biggest question, which is often unspoken, is the motivational question.

"WHY would you start a new church?"  Especially in a city which already has so many churches.  Doesn't Temple, TX have enough churches already?

So we want to be very clear that the reason for planting Redeemer Presbyterian Church is NOT that there are not already many gospel-centered, Bible-loving churches doing great things in this city.  The reality is that God has been at work in this place, long before any of us were around, long before our little denomination decided it would be a good idea to plant a church here, through many faithful churches.  To act like we are the first ones on the scene or to ignore the gospel ministry already taking place with be egocentric and arrogant in the extreme.  We appreciate and give thanks for the faithful churches in this community and want to join with them in the good work that God is already doing.

We believe that planting churches is the most effective means of fulfilling Jesus' Great Commission to make disciples of all nations.  Church plants have a unique character that enable them to be an easy place for new people to get connected.  Both people new to a particular region, as well as people who are beginning to explore Christianity for the first time.

We actually don't believe that planting one church is enough.  We want to be a part of the church planting movement in Central Texas.  If God graciously establishes Redeemer in Temple then we desire to multiply.  We expect to hear the same question in the future:  "Aren't there already enough churches in Temple?"  And the answer will still be "No."

Until King Jesus returns, there will always be a need for new churches to be established in every community.  We look forward to being a part of God's great church planting movement.

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