Redeemer Presbyterian Church

Sermon Series, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Charleston, SC, Easter 2016This past Sunday, February 28 at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Charleston, SC, we began a new mini sermon series as we prepare for Easter. Be sure to read our senior pastor's introduction to this new series titled The Week That Changed the World. We began this first week in the series in Mark 11:1-11 with Jesus' Triumphal En...

On Sunday, February 21 at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Charleston, SC, our senior pastor continued our Deuteronomy sermon series with Deuteronomy 26:11-19. The week before in the first part of chapter 26 we left God's People worshiping and bowing before the Lord, giving their best of the harvest to the Lord. In their posture of worship, we see that worship changes us--but changes us into what?...

Craig opened up his Valentine’s Day sermon focusing on the unlikely love match between sinful humans and a holy God. What do we owe a God who orchestrated this relationship to provide us with eternal life? Deuteronomy 26:1-11 delves into the appropriate way to worship. God explains to the worshipers exactly how to approach the Throne, giving their first fruits and reciting the story of God’s 180-t...

From this week's passage in Deuteronomy 26:17-19, Pastor Craig expounds on the unchanging nature of our just and loving God. As His imperfect children, we often try to fit God into a box, or call Him to prove Himself over and over and over to us when we encounter parts of His nature we don't understand. For example, how do we reconcile this passage that seems vengeful? By finding the heart of it—G...

In our continuing Deuteronomy sermon series at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Charleston, SC, this past Sunday, January 31 brought an "embarrassing" section in chapter 25, verses 11-12. Though our society may look down on propriety, decorum, and modesty, we see from God's law that modesty is important. Modesty is not a sign of repression but of redemption and renewal. Then our senior pastor moved...

Until I came to Redeemer, Deuteronomy had been one of those books that I often skipped over in my scripture reading. It was difficult on my own to understand what all of the archaic rules and family lineages meant. However, every Deuteronomy sermon for the past two years (has it really been two years?!) has revealed the heart of God in the most obscure of laws. This past Sunday, Craig preached abo...

Rev. Craig Bailey delivered the first sermon of the first gathering of the newly formed Lowcountry Presbytery.

As we returned to our Deuteronomy sermon series this past Sunday, January 17, our senior pastor led us through the first three verses of Deuteronomy 25, where we see how justice is to be carried out among God's people. God is just and desires for his people to be just. God has entrusted his world, his name, his gospel, and his message to us: How well are we keeping this trust? How accurately are w...

Redeemer welcomed Will Hunter to the pulpit and to the piano this Sunday, January 10, 2016. He helped us kick off the new year by preaching from Psalm 8 and focusing our gaze on new horizons. In Psalm 8, David writes about God's majesty and glory and about His way of creating and sustaining which only He is able to do. Even the work of God's fingers--His fingers which set the moon and the stars in...

Our senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Charleston, SC, wrapped up his Advent sermon series preaching through John 1:19-28 this past Sunday, January 3. He began by talking about the "spotlight effect"--our naturally being conscious of ourselves, what we are thinking, how we look, and what we are doing--as described in this December 2015 article in The Atlantic. While being self-consci...

Each week Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Charleston, SC, posts new sermons from senior pastor Rev. Craig Bailey for listening free of charge. Guest pastors’ sermons are also posted.

In his sermon this week, Pastor Craig explains the reality behind the small phrase, “Joseph considered these things,” which are words that we often take for granted during the Christmas season. In Matthew’s account of the birth of Christ, the angel who visits Joseph tells him not to be afraid—but what was he afraid of? Craig postulates that, because Joseph was deemed to be a righteous man in God’s...

We continued our Advent sermon series this past Sunday, December 13 at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Charleston, SC, with Matthew 11:2-12. Since our culture has shaped us into people who doubt what we see (e.g., Photoshopped pictures), our senior pastor challenged us by asking: How big of a doubter are you? We looked at the passage in Matthew where John the Baptist reveals his doubts concerning...

I can’t even count the number of times I’ve said “I’m sorry” to God, to others, or to myself only to commit the same sin I apologized for mere moments later. Craig’s sermon this Sunday focused on repentance—true repentance consisting of not just saying that we are sorry, but actually making a radical, dramatic change in our behavior. This transformation, of course, cannot happen without God’s merc...

As we began Advent this past Sunday, November 29 at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Charleston, SC, our senior pastor began a short sermon series to inspire us to not waste the wait. He challenged us to think about how we spend our time: What are we doing while we wait for the return of the King? How does the certainty of Advent shape our time while we wait? He encouraged us to be salt and light a...

Each week Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Charleston, SC, posts new sermons from senior pastor Rev. Craig Bailey for listening free of charge. Guest pastors’ sermons are also posted.

Perception is reality and therefore it comprises so much of our lives—who we are, the friends we keep, the choices we make. This week, Pastor Craig poses the questions, "What is your perception of God? How can you rightly perceive who God is?" It is only through the lens of a correct perception of God that we can begin to perceive ourselves and our purpose. Such an understanding of the Lord leads...

Take a moment from your day to listen to Craig reveal (through Deuteronomy 23:17-25) how we can live well in the land the Lord has given us. Verses 17 and 18 reveal God’s displeasure with an offering of money earned by prostitution. It would be easy for modern-day Christians to gloss over this verse, touting that we are not prostitutes and that we earn our money in more respectable ways. However,...

What joy in these verses of Philippians 1:1-6! Paul's confidence in the Lord shines through his words; his cup overflows. He acknowledges God as the beginning and the end of our time here in this broken world. He praises his partners in their obedience and offers encouragement to them in their ministry by reminding them that their strength is in the Lord's faithful, guiding hand. The power of God'...

The purity of worshiping God is something that we, as sinners, often neglect in preference to a worship that entertains or makes us feel good. In this week's sermon, Pastor Craig reads from Deuteronomy 23:1-14, which emphasizes what, at first, might sound like archaic practices and harsh rules about how to live our lives well and be worshipful people. But from this passage, we learn yet another tr...

On Sunday, Craig turned our attention to Deuteronomy 22, a passage that, on the surface, seems archaic. God presents rules that appear to make little sense in today’s culture: do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard, do not plow with an ox and a donkey, and do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together. It’s important to remember, though, that modern Christians have much to learn ab...

This past Sunday, October 11 at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Charleston, SC, we returned to our Deuteronomy sermon series examining the first few verses of Chapter 22 about our responsibility for our neighbors. The first question asked by a human that’s recorded in the Bible is Cain’s: Am I my brother’s keeper? (meaning am I responsible to take care of my brother?) From the beginning God has gi...

In this sermon, Craig addresses a tough passage—Deuteronomy 21:18-23—that outlines what parents are to do with a rebellious, wayward child. God requires the parents to take their disobedient child to the elders to be stoned to death. Most modern-day reactions to this command range from laughing (as though it’s a joke) to doubt of God’s love (thinking, How could a loving God be so unforgiving and r...

Proverbs 11:10 says, “…through the blessing of the upright, a city is exalted.” This passage speaks volumes to the purpose of Deuteronomy 21, our focus for this week’s sermon. In it, God sets forth multiple scenarios in which His people are to act justly and seek His righteousness over their own desires or the “easy” paths of the world. Pastor Craig emphasizes three of those points: unsolved murde...

As we've seen the past few weeks in our Deuteronomy sermon series, battle is a constant reality for God's people. Through this land and these people will come Jesus, the Savior of the world, and God is giving his people instructions in Deuteronomy 20:1-9 about whom he wants fighting in the battle. The fainthearted are given an exception to fighting, told to go home with no judgment or court martia...