Church of The Redeemer - Sermons

Motivation is a powerful force, whether it is a walk-up song during sports or someone giving a moving speech, we all desire to be motivated. For Christians, motivation helps us stay committed to doing good works. This happens through remembering our former selves and just how much God has saved us. As we engage our community with the gospel, we must remember our salvation and commit ourselves to g...

Highway billboards can be a humorous way to highlight or point to a product or service. They act as a public witness to every traveler. Just like the billboards we pass daily on the highway, Christians are called to act as public witnesses to the transforming grace of the gospel. Will our lives testify to God's grace or will our sin act as a hindrance to others?

Everyone loves a good transformation story. Whether someone is flipping houses or losing lots of weight, transformation is a story that draws people in. In God's story, transformation only happens through grace. Grace is God's unmerited favor, compassion, and faithful love shown to undeserving sinners. While we are prone to deformation through sin, God calls us into deeper transformation through g...

When approaching Biblical passages on slavery, we must make distinctions between Roman and chattel slavery. As a massive part of Roman culture, slavery (bondservants/servants) is more akin to the employee/employer relationships we have in our modern culture. As the testimony of Scripture declares, work is good. But, sin makes us selfish workers, bringing disdain to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This...

Like a potter carefully making a clay vessel, God is not arbitrary in his design. He has fearfully and wonderfully made men and women to live out their intended design in this world. He has an important role for women to play in the church and Paul seeks to draw this out in Titus 2. Sin may have complicated women's desires and made them unable to embrace this calling, but those who the grace of Je...

Our culture is facing a crisis of masculinity. It's a crisis brought upon by cultural confusion and forces seeking to make Biblical manhood a negative term. But Paul gives Titus specific instructions for older and younger men about living sound doctrine in their everyday lives and how to live as a transformed community. In Titus 2:1-2 and verses 6-8, we see true manhood is reattained through God's...

False teachers were a pernicious issue on Crete. They were the main reason Paul sent Titus to the small island because they were dividing the church in half. After commending faithful elders to teach sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it, he sets the church up to faithfully confront false teachers through sound doctrine.

One of the main reasons Paul sent Titus back to Crete was to appoint elders in the church, establishing the blueprint for who should lead God's people. These elders are men whom God calls to lead in plurality, in their homes, in their lives above reproach, and through teaching and correction. In sum, faithful elders look and lead like Jesus.

Ever since the serpent spoke his first words to Eve in the Garden, "Did God really say?" we have been wrestling with believing God cannot lie. This was a persistent problem on the island of Crete where Paul's son in the faith, Titus, finds himself. Titus is there to set things back into order, to remind the Cretans of the transformation that comes from salvation. This truth leads us to affirm that...

God's people are called to be different. Yet, rather than embracing our transformation, we assimilate into the culture around us, allowing it to dictate how we live. This was the exact issue facing the church in Crete. Paul writes to his son in the faith, Titus, about how to set God's household back into order and in alignment with the salvation won for them in the death and resurrection of Jesus....

How can God's people overcome the obstacles of division and disunity to achieve true and lasting unity? The answer, according the Ephesians 4:1-16, is found by healthy churches knowing her calling, remembering her confession, utilizing her gifts, and growing in maturity.

Throughout 1 Corinthians 15, Paul describes the importance of the resurrection, how it connects to our daily struggle against sin, and what kind of bodies will inherit the New Creation. Paul now closes this triumphant chapter with the death of death. Because of this truth, Christians live faithful lives now, knowing Christ has defeated death and will destroy it at his second coming.

In our day and age, the resurrection of the body seems like a ridiculous idea. It's an idea that's roundly mocked in popular culture. Still, it was also mocked during the Greco-Roman period (Acts 17:32). The resurrection of the dead will always seem foolish to the world, but Paul wants to make the case for it in 1 Corinthians 15:35-49. This text shows that the resurrected Jesus gives us every reas...

In his resurrection, Jesus reversed death, secured our resurrection, and enabled us to stand strong against those who seek to deny it. This is a constant danger for Christians as we seek to hold to the importance of the gospel. There will be those who deny the resurrection and attempt to dissuade us of its importance and power. But because Jesus has risen, we can stand strong on his victory over d...

Many stories throughout history showcase the dangers of improper navigation. It's a danger not just to yourself but to everyone else around you. Having just uplifted the importance of the gospel, Paul goes on to detail what happens when we improperly navigate our lives and refuse to live out the implications of the gospel. If we deny one part of the gospel, such as the resurrection, we deny the wh...

No matter how long we live, we must never forget the fundamentals. This is where Paul begins in 1 Corinthians 15. For us to grasp and experience the power of Jesus' resurrection and the death of death, we can't forget the fundamentals of the gospel. When we do we lose grip on reality. It's that central. Without it, we give in to hopelessness and despair. It is the source of truth and transformatio...

Throughout the book of Malachi, we've seen how our hearts are prone to wander. We question God's love based on our circumstances, we give worthless worship to God, question his justice, fail to live as a faithful family, rob him through our tithes and offerings, and grow cynical about worshiping him. Despite this rebellion, God is faithful and unchanging towards his people. As Malachi closes his p...

Sin comes with a high price. The apostle Paul writes in Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death. Good Friday reminds us of the high cost of sin which took the life of the Son of God. But it also reminds us of the rest of verse 23, that the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus. While we could never pay the wages of our sins, Jesus came to pay every cent on the cross.

In this final charge the people bring against God in Malachi 3:13-18, the people are asking whether it's really worth it to follow God with their whole lives. They see the wicked prospering around them and it's caused them to grow cynical about fruitful and faith-fill obedience. God's word against them is that those who follow obediently in his commands will have their names written in the book of...

It's become commonplace in popular culture to tell people to follow their hearts. But what Malachi makes clear is that that's terrible advice. What we see in Malachi 3:7-12 is that when it comes to something as ubiquitous as money and wealth, we can't trust our hearts. The people are robbing God by not giving joyfully, humbly, and sacrificially. How can they return? By regaining our fear of the Lo...

One of the common threads throughout the Bible is that God is purifying and refining his people. While this change may seem painful at times, we can trust in a God who never changes. Our unchanging God only wants to refine, not destroy, his beloved people. Because God never changes, we must trust how he changes us.

From the promises to Abraham to the story of Exodus, God has been calling a people set apart to display his goodness and mercy to the nations. And yet, in Malachi 2:10-16, we see Israel betraying God and each other as they live unholy lives by marrying foreign women and being enticed to their gods, as well as casually divorcing the wives of their youths. This compounds into betrayal and treachery...

We are all hard-wired to know why we were made. Millions of dollars are spent each year in the hopes that people will be able to find their true purpose in life. Yet we miss the simple truth told to us in Scripture: we are made to worship God. This is the very same idea the prophet Malachi brings up in Malachi 2:1-9, that because God has made, called, and purposed us, our posture in worship and pr...

There can sometimes be grave consequences when we ignore warning signs and treat uncontrollable things irreverently. In the case of Israel, they were treating God irreverently through their defiled sacrifices. The pronouncement of Malachi 1:6-14 reveals the foundation of their worthless worship is a low view of God and the fruit of their worthless worship is empty religious rituals. Yet, this pron...

Disappointment is something everyone, everywhere has to face. Relational, social, financial, and vocational disappointments can, if we are not careful, make us fall prey to doubt and disobedience. If our view of God's love is based on our circumstances, we will always be disappointed. Yet, the opening verses of Malachi declare that even in the disappointments of life, we can know we are loved by t...