The Kingdom Perspective

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome The Kingdom Perspective.   The year 2025 marks a hugely significant moment in the history of the Church. Seventeen hundred years earlier, Christian leaders from all over the Roman Empire met freely and openly for the first time to affirm the Scriptural and longstanding teaching of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. In the decade l...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome the Kingdom Perspective. Increasingly, many from all different persuasions are tempted to become mere critics and complainers—trying to find fault and pin blame. However, this is not the roadmap the gospel gives. Jesus’s way is not that of finger pointing or trying to score cheap political points. Rather, Jesus calls...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Leadership is critical to any organization and there are three qualities necessary for any leader. What are these qualities? Well, the first quality is humility. The second quality is… humility. And the third quality is… (you guessed it) humility. Like real estate is all about location, lo...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   According to classical Christian teaching, at the very source of reality, we find a perfect and eternal relationship of self-giving love. A divine community (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) in an infinite, mutual, self-giving relationship—perfectly and equally sharing being and joy before...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   Hospitality is a discipline of heart, mind, and action. It requires you to have a new mindset—to work at getting outside yourself (your perspective, preferences, hurts, grievances, etc.) into the world of “the other”. It requires being considerate and kind, looking at and appreciating life from a...

Transcript: Hello this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   If we were to peel back the universe to see what’s underneath it—to discover the very source of reality—we would not find a mathematical formula, nor a scientific theory, nor a moral to do list, nor even a theological doctrinal statement. All these are good and necessary in their place, but they a...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.    Hospitality is demanding. It requires us to give sacrificially of ourselves. At the core of hospitality is a discipline of heart, mind, and action. It requires you and me to have a new mindset—to work at getting outside ourselves (our perspective, preferences, hurts, grievances, etc.) into the w...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   What is the basis of the modern sexual ethic? I think it boils down to one word: “consent”. If the participants (whatever the number) are agreeable in the activity (whatever it may be), there can be no complaint, for they have done so willingly—they have given their “consent”.   Now, beyond the q...

Transcript: Hello this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   One of the marks of contemporary life is our fragile sense of self. We are easily offended and thrown off by lack of affirmation from others. This is strange since we claim, quite proudly, that we are self-made people. Supposedly, we find our identity by looking within and not to others; “I have a...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Cornel West is well-known for his outspoken views on politics, race and economics. Politically and otherwise, he is left-leaning, to put it mildly. He is not a fan of Western capitalism and has severe critiques of the history of racism in the West and its lingering effects. Whether you agree with C...

Transcript: Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!   Though ancient Christians practiced the strictest sexual ethic of their day, they were anything but judgmental towards those ravaged by the effects of sexual sin. The followers of Jesus were distinguished by the grace they extended to those exploited by the sexual confusion and callousness of Rom...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. The Christian knows that this world will never be perfected until Jesus returns. Nonetheless, we do believe that the church should have a positive and redemptive effect on society in the here-and-now. But how exactly are we to do this? Well, we do this by being the church—by demonstrating...

Transcript: Hello this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   There have been deep and dramatic cultural changes in the past 75 years or so, unmooring much of what our civilization took for granted. Nowhere is this more evident than in our sense of “self”. In traditional cultures, one gained an identity either by pedigree (being born into a particular family...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   One of the most interesting friendships as of late in the academic world is that between Dr. Cornel West and Dr. Robert George. West taught for years at Princeton and Harvard, in addition to being a visiting professor at Dartmouth. George is a nationally recognized legal scholar who also teaches...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. One of the marks of a church ought to be loving hospitality. Listen to what Paul says in his letter to the church in Rome. In chapter 12 he is begins laying out how the gospel of Jesus transforms the way we live. What does it look like when Jesus gets a hold of one’s life? He says: Let love be with...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. “Seeking God” is one of those bottom-line imperatives of the Bible. We are called to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.” We are to be like King David who cried out: One thing have I asked of the Lord,    that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord    all the days o...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. The notion of the rule of law is not something that just happened in the history of Western civilization. It was not accidental. Rather, just as ideas have consequences, so ideas also have antecedents. There’s always something that comes before. Most clearly, this notion can be traced to w...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Freedom is a byproduct of virtue. And virtue is a byproduct of objective moral restraint. In other words, the only way you can be truly free is not by doing what you want, but by being the kind of person who does what’s right. This is why the late Jonathan Sacks (1948-2020), the former Chi...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   Biblically speaking, hospitality is the love and welcome of strangers. “Love of strangers” is the literal meaning of the New Testament word, and it is the posture God expected Israel to have towards sojourners in their land. This is not surprising when we think of the hospitality God exercises to...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Times of crisis often reveal hidden problems. Repeatedly, we have seen national crises expose and exacerbate lingering social divisions. Class, race, politics are often pressed (and even, at times, manipulated), to further divide our nation, and even the church. As Christians, we must not allow thi...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   It is in our nature to want things to be easy always—for life to be sunny with no storms. Sounds good, right? However, do you know what you call a place that’s sunny all the time and never rains? A desert!   Sometimes God purposes to bring us through the desert, a wilderness—a difficult...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome the Kingdom Perspective.   What is the most important task of a parent?   We get some clue when we consider the Fatherhood of God. God doesn’t take the title “Our Heavenly Father” because He hopes to model His care after our example. Quite the opposite! Rather, He is trying to set an example for us. He is the model and standa...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   Times can get really bad. I mean really bad! Even in the company of God’s people.   During the 7th century B.C., a young king arose in Judah. This was the famous King Josiah, the 16th king of the southern kingdom. During his reign (c. 640-609) he oversaw a movement of reformation and rev...

Transcript: Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!   What does a humble person look like? If you ran into a truly humble person, what would be their standout characteristic? Would they go on and on, trying to prove or show off their humility? Or would they be timid and withdrawn, displaying a sense of self-hatred?   No, none of these at all.   Reme...

Transcript: Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!   There is no trait more necessary to being happy than humility. Humility means not taking yourself so stinking seriously. And we do that by taking God and His Word with the utmost seriousness. It is the fear of the Lord that protects us from pride burdening our souls with the unnecessary weight of...