The Kingdom Perspective

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Jesus gave us the ordinance of the Lord’s Table to mark of our fellowship with Him and with one another. It is for this reason that it is often called Holy Communion. The Lord Jesus himself instituted this sacrament as a way for us not only to remember Him and His mission, but also as a tangible pa...

Transcript: Thank you for listening to and supporting The Kingdom Perspective! The Kingdom Perspective is a ministry of Christ Redeemer Church of Hanover, NH. To hear more episodes you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts. To donate or to find out more about the ministry and resources offered by Christ Redeemer Church visit www.christredeemerchurch.org .

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. To be faithful to God we must fight fear and determine not to be driven by it. Certainly, we need to do everything we can to follow the steps of wisdom. For example, if your fear is health related, then you should be careful to follow the best medical science. Surely, God gave us a mind to think an...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective. In this world of trouble, we should prepare ourselves mentally for the fact that life is a long hard fight fraught with many difficulties and setbacks. This is not pessimism. It is realism. And it only destroys our hope, if we let it. On May 13th, 1940 with the fall of France imminent, Winston Chur...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Nothing exposes our vulnerability like death. Is it any wonder that our culture pushes the experience of death to the margins of society? We are mere flesh, made from the dust of the earth. From dust we came and to dust we will return. As the prophet Isaiah put it: “All flesh is grass, and...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Have you ever considered a career in science or medicine? Why do I ask? Science and medicine are two wonderful and biblical ways to worship God and serve our neighbor. The Bible gives great warrant to the enterprise of science. It tells us that this world is created by an all-powerful and rational...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Are you being careful to discern between true and false shepherds of the church? In the world today, there are many charlatans that only want to fleece the flock. Many skeptics will want to blame Christianity itself for this. However, the fact that there are counterfeit Christians is not proof that...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. From the opening pages of the Bible, human beings are called to work and to be creative and resourceful with how we do our work. Work is central to what it means to be human. Nonetheless, it seems that work life in the modern world has been in a state of constant disruption. Changing technologies a...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective! What should we pray for right now more than anything else in these troubled times? Certainly, we should pray for provision for our needs and protection from all our troubles—for ourselves, our family and our world. The “Lord’s Prayer” commands us to pray, “Gives us this day our daily bread…and deli...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective. I love the simplicity and wisdom of Martin Luther’s faith. In 1527 as the plague hit Wittenberg, the German pastor and professor offered some advice to a fellow pastor. Of course, Luther wrote without knowledge of modern science and medicine. Nonetheless, carefully note his courageous faith tempere...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective. In the frenetic pace of modern life, rest is often the first casualty. However, biblically speaking, rest is a good thing. God instituted a Sabbath in the very created order. He commanded the children of Israel to “Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy.” In other words, the nation of Isra...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome the Kingdom Perspective. Do you know that God saves us through suffering, not apart from it? Peter reminds us to not be surprised by the “fiery ordeal” that comes upon us for our “testing.” In the context the “fiery testing” speaks of precious metal in the furnace. The heat purifies the gold by separating out the dro...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective. All people are called to obey the civil authorities, but this is all the more so for the Christian. Why? The Christian knows that authority is not a “necessary evil” but is an essential good. All authority is from God, and He Himself is the authority above all authorities. God is good and...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective. There is a reason why Christians of previous generations were more stalwart in the face of life’s troubles. They drank deeply from the well of good, gospel-driven theology. They were not content to skim the surface or merely dabble in doctrine, but dug deep into the truth of Christ and roo...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective. Sacrificial generosity is at the very heart of the Christian gospel. The gospel is the story of God generously sacrificing His life for us. When we believe the gospel, we become those that do the same for others. Fortunately, We have 2,000-years of church history replete with accounts of t...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective. Generosity is at the very heart of the gospel. If you do not understand generosity, you do not understand Jesus. The Bible reminds us, that in this world there will always be those with physical and material needs. At times of extreme social and economic upheaval, this becomes all the more...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective. The Gospel of Jesus calls us to rethink the arrogant assumptions of our lives. For example, as we’ve seen over and over again with tragedies near and far, it doesn’t take much to expose both our frailty and the foolish of our assumptions about life. The fact that a mere virus—something so...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Christian history is filled with those made courageous by gospel hope. One such example is the great German reformer Martin Luther. He is certainly one who knew fear and tragedy. But he also knew the power of Christ to overcome these. When the plague hit the university town of Wittenberg i...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective. The Bible suggests that one of the practical ways we can fulfill the biblical command to love our neighbor is through the practice of good science. The word “science” comes from an old Latin term for knowledge. Biblically speaking, science is good and true because we live in an orderly uni...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective. What exactly is the intersection between science and the Bible? The word science comes from an old Latin term for knowledge. When we speak of “science” we speak of a particular method of obtaining knowledge and the collective/generational wisdom that comes from following that method. Bibli...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Jesus loves sinners. You could even rightfully say that He prefers sinners. But, our problem is that we tend to make too little of our sin, and therefore too little of our Savior. We pretend that our sin is not as bad as it is, or that God is not as mad at sin as He is. Now, we could stop...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to a special-edition series of The Kingdom Perspective. How should we respond to the coronavirus threat? We should take great comfort in the terror and tenderness of Jesus. Now, I realize this may seem a strange way of speaking of Jesus, and perhaps a bit counter-intuitive, to say that he is both terrifying and tende...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Sometimes we can struggle to have patience with the weakness we see in others. This impatience speaks not to our superiority but to our sin. God is patient with the weak. Worse, sometimes we can struggle to have patience with weakness in ourselves. We are disappointed with the weakness of...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Fear is a monster that must be confronted. In the Psalms King David is constantly confronting his fear by bringing it into the presence of God. Listen to his prayer in Psalm 27: Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident....

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Fear wants to control us, so that we are unable to obey God and love others. Therefore, fear must be confronted. The only way you can defeat fear is to fight it. You have to push against it. We all want safety and security. However, this is not a safe world. The truth is that God doesn’t p...