The Kingdom Perspective

Transcript: Hello! This is Pastor Don of the Christ Redeemer Church of Hanover, NH. Welcome to a special edition of The Kingdom Perspective.   I want to invite you to join us in a very strategic missions’ opportunity that’s happening right here in the heart of the Upper Valley through the ministry of Christ Redeemer.   From the beginning, Christ Redeemer has sought to be a church for others. We wa...

Transcript: Hello! This is Pastor Don of the Christ Redeemer Church of Hanover, NH. Welcome to a special edition of The Kingdom Perspective.   Christ Redeemer has a strategic opportunity before us. We are now the first new church approved for a building in this Ivy League town in over 60 years! This has not come without challenge and difficulty.   For over 20 years we sifted through dozens of prop...

Transcript: Hello! This is Pastor Don of the Christ Redeemer Church of Hanover, NH. Welcome to a special edition of The Kingdom Perspective.   May I invite you to participate in one of the most strategic mission opportunities I know of? That opportunity is happening right here in Hanover. When my wife and I moved here 25 years ago we came here for two reasons. The first was the greatness of the ne...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   When we think of the idea of “hospitality”, we usually think of wining and dining. Images of nice houses, fine meals, and throwing parties that impress our friends and neighbors comes to mind. A whole segment of our economy has developed around what we call the “hospitality industry”, which makes...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   There is a paradox to generosity. Jesus puts it this way: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). “Blessedness” doesn’t come from getting but from giving. The more you give, the more you will find. We gain by losing.   This is very counterintuitive to the native posture of our...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   God is a god of abundance, not of scarcity—and this abundance is on display in all that He has made. God is not a miserable miser, but a glad Giver of all good things. He is happy and blessed (Ephesians 1:3; Romans 1:25) and overflowing with joy, precisely because He has an infinite capacity for...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   Allow me to ask you a question. Do you consider yourself a spiritually strong person or a spiritually weak person? I find that for most of us there is a deep longing to be a spiritually strong person. We don’t like the feeling of weakness and neediness. We even surmise that being spiritually weak...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   Our God is a God of abundance and generosity. This is seen in who He is and in all that He does.   Just consider something as common as the earth God created, the ground we all walk on. It’s made of dirt and rock. It’s so cheap and mundane we trample it underfoot without thought. It’s just “dirt”...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   Our God is a god of generosity and abundance. We see this in several ways. First is the limitlessness of His very being. God is not bound by time and space. He’s not bound by anything outside Himself, at all. God needs nothing to exist for He is being itself, and so, He alone possesses the power...

Transcript:   Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   Generosity is at the very heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, it is not surprising this same Jesus who generously gave His life for our redemption is the same one who made a world so abundantly diverse. Jesus wove abundance and generosity into the very fabric of His creation.   The Bible t...

  Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!   Early Christians were known for their care of the weak and frail. This contrasted deeply with the callous culture in which they lived.   For example, the Law of the Twelve Tables, the earliest codification of Roman Law (c. 450-451 BC) required fathers to kill any deformed child. Though this Law was no long...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.   What does the Bible say about racism and ethnocentrism? A whole lot!   The Bible tells us that we all have a shared origin and identity. God made each of us in the image of God. The Apostle Paul explains it this way: God “made from one man [i.e., Adam] every nation” and He did so…that they should...

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 and necessary 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,...

Transcript: Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!   What is the truly wise way to engage in our present cultural conflicts?   As a society, we are increasingly tempted to divide along “us vs. them” lines and demonize those that disagree with us. But the Bible suggests that such ungracious posturing can easily drive us to be pawns of the devil, (Ja...

Transcript: Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective! In our current cultural climate, we are increasingly tempted to absolutize politics. We, thus, become convinced in our own rightness, and so begin operating in a very “us vs. them” framework. In contradiction to this Jesus calls us to a different posture. He calls us to humble service and love, eve...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Rome was the most pluralistic civilization the world had ever seen.1 The Empire was comprised of people from all sorts of backgrounds, cultures and religions. So, this raises the question: Why then were Christians so singled out as a threat? Well, the answer is simple: they refused to decl...

Transcript: Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective! When engaging in political discussion, we must always seek to be considerate of our brothers and sisters who may have differing perspectives, born of differing personal experiences. Do not stand in judgment of one another. Human politics are always messy. Our options are never perfect, and our pers...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. The gospel of Jesus is completely counterintuitive. Now, to be clear that is not because it doesn’t make rational sense. Rather, it is because our souls have become irrational under the effects of sin. Because of sin, our minds tend to reason that we must get our life all together before G...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. The message of Jesus’s Gospel was very difficult for the ancient Roman Empire to process. The word “gospel” was not unfamiliar to the Romans. They would have spoken of the “good news” of the rise of a new emperor. For example, when Augustus, who a few years earlier had conquered all the re...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Classical Christianity suffers no illusions that this world will ever be perfected by any human effort. Christians have no reason to fall prey to naïve utopian fantasies. Nonetheless, Classical Christianity does believe that the church should have a redemptive and salutary effect on general society...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. One of the critiques of Christianity is that it makes its followers so heavenly-minded that they are of no earthly-good. This assumes that heavenly-mindedness is somehow contrary or detrimental to earthly-good. I beg to differ. Any honest look at history will tell you the exact opposite; the most h...

Transcript: Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!   The devil is the mother, the fountain, of all grumbling and accusation. He has no gratitude in him but is upset and angry about everything.   Now, how does he get us to be complicit with his tactics? One of the chief ways is through our own unresolved anger.   Ephesians 4 warns us: “Be angry, and...

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective. Many cultural commentators are suggesting that the church in the Western world is experiencing greater degree of what the Bible calls “exile.” The church has lost its position of prominence and has become more scattered in its influence. However, we must remember that even when we have the...

Transcript: Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!   The Bible presents the devil as a grumbler, always finding fault, always accusing. He’s the poster child for the unhappy grump.   Now, why is the devil so unhappy? Well, he’s so unhappy because he’s so ungrateful. He doesn’t have a thankful bone in his body. He’s utterly discontent. Nothing is ev...

Transcript: Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!   Everyone knows that grumbling is the opposite of gratitude, but most are unaware of what drives it.   At the root of the grumble is unbelief in God.   Now, I need to be clear. Grumbling is not the same as what the Bible calls “lament”. Lament is biblically condoned; grumbling is condemned. For ex...