Summer Camp

We have arranged for a week of summer camp in Sandbridge, VA.  We will start on June 8th and come back on June 15th.  Our focus ages are people going into 8th grade through college.  We will be worshiping together, growing as disciples through biblical teaching, serving the homeless at Union Mission Ministries in Norfolk,  enjoying great meals and fellowship in the house called Fun and Games, which is the same one we had last year.  Camp cost $275.  If you want to go, don’t let a lack of money stop you from coming.  We will work with you to find a way to pay for it.  We’d love to have a full camp of 29 people.  Contact Rich for more information.  304 270 8673.

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Invite your One this weekend to worship.

Thom Rainer says that about 82 percent of people would attend a church service if a friend invited them. What constitutes an invitation? For many of the unchurched, it was a simple invitation to come to one’s church. For others, it was an invitation that included an offer to meet someone at church to show them around or walk them into the building. In either case, the process was pretty basic. If we invite them, they will come.
This Sunday is Easter. It would be a great time to invite your The One you’ve been praying for and sharing the good news about Jesus to come with you.
I will be talking about how the resurrection of Jesus Christ changes everything.

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The Invisible Tape Recorder

Francis Schaeffer, in The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century, offered an analogy for how God will judge us one day: At birth every person is fitted with an invisible microphone around their neck. You will always be completely unaware of it, and it only records when you say things like “someone should. . .”, He ought to. . . “, “No one should ever. . . “ . When you die and are brought to the judgment seat, God will not judge the Jews by the Torah; he will not judge the Christians by the Bible. He will not judge the pagans by their religion either. Instead he will play back your recorder, and every time you say those ought’s and oughtn’ts, God will judge you on your own judgments. If you don’t see that you would be in big trouble under those terms, please pause and ask someone who knows and loves you if you sometimes have a higher standard for others than you do for yourself.
Law brings judgment. Romans chapter 2 says that we who judge others do the same things they do, and under the law we will all be punished. But God, in his kindness is leading us to repentance. At the end of the chapter Paul writes about a circumcision of the heart, a heart surgery, a heart change, a tuning of our hearts into God’s frequency. God help me, help us to stop looking at our New Testament, as a new set of laws and rules, but as the chance to have a new heart, to be right before God because of the blood Jesus Christ shed for us, instead of trying to balance out the scales with our own right acts. Jesus faced my judgment on the cross, and now I’m innocent before God. Praise the Lord!

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Jesus is Better than Captain Marvel, Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker and Winnie-the-Pooh

I was talking with one of the guys from church the other day. He said sometimes he has a hard time believing that Jesus is God. I asked him: “What if Jesus was like he’s described in The Bible, but he wasn’t God, and he knew he wasn’t God?” I suggested that he would have been a very bad guy if he did that. His apparent wisdom and power to do miracles would have had an evil source. He would have been pretending to love even the most cast out people in his environment.
We agreed that Jesus doesn’t seem like that kind of person.
Then I asked him to consider a different possibility. A guy named Jesus was a unique individual, and a lot of people thought he was going to change the world, but things didn’t work out. Jesus was killed, and as time went on, they began to make him into a legend. Many people believe that is what happened, but I think Holy Spirit showed me a huge problem with that: we cannot even make up someone as good and great as Jesus of Nazareth. In the thousands of years, before and after Jesus’ life on earth, people have been making up heroes, from Achilles to Beowulf, from Luke Skywalker to Harry Potter, and none of them are anywhere even close in character, power, wisdom, and compassion to Jesus.
Harry Potter loves his friends. He stands against evil and saves the world–7 times, but he doesn’t eat dinner at Voldemort’s house. Luke Skywalker can move things with his mind and trick dumb creatures into following his will, but he doesn’t feed 5,000 people with a padawan’s lunch. Winnie-the-Pooh is so kind that he invites homeless Piglet to come live with him, but we all know Pooh is not very smart, and he cannot walk on water.
How is it that in all these thousands of years, no writer has been able to conceive of someone greater than Jesus Christ? Jesus is the greatest, and, what the Bible says about him, it’s all true. Colossians 1:15-20 has a great praise report about who Jesus is: “He is the image of the invisible God. . . supreme over all creation. . . all things were created through him and for him. . . he holds all creation together. . . the fulness of God was pleased to dwell in him. . . through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.”

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Training tips from Romans 1 and 2

After many hours in Romans 1 and 2 last week, I thought of some things that might help us represent Jesus better to a world that would be better off knowing him.
The first two points have to do with expressing a case for the existence of God. Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for all who believe,” and that “They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them.” I hope that you are talking about your faith with people who have no faith. They may believe in science and the big bang. Ask them what’s behind the big band, because as far as we know “nothing comes from nothing.” If there was a big bang, then we believe it was the result of God’s speaking the world into existence, and that God is the one who was, is and will be. God has no beginning. You can believe in the big bang as the cause of the universe or that God is the cause of the universe, or both. Although I’m interested in science and the big bang, I believe in God.
The second training point is to have some thoughts about how God’s hand is evident in the design of the world around us. If you and I took a walk deep into the woods and found a perfectly round, perfectly clear, 12-inch round glass sphere on the ground, we would both have the same question: “Who left this here?” Something as well made as that sphere points to a maker, and the simplest living thing is incredibly more complex than the sphere in the woods.
The third training point is the most important. We should daily seek an awareness that our personal sin, past, present and future, were paid for in blood by Jesus Christ. The training point is to set that in front of us day by day, so that we don’t go around judging others while ignoring our own sinfulness. Romans 2:1 says that we who judge others for all the wrong they do, do the same things. Keep that in front of you as you interact with a broken world.

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There’s More

Do you ever wonder about how God can be one God, but have three persons? I hope so, because God should give us a sense of wonder. Like looking at a fire and letting that natural wonder bounce around your brain, the supernatural wonder of the Trinity is worth our time, contemplation, and adoration. When Jesus returns to the disciples after his resurrection, he tells the disciples to make more disciples, and to baptize them in the name of the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Why did Jesus mention the Trinity at that time? I don’t know, but I see something that is meaningful in how he said it.
Baptism is a sign of identifying with Jesus in his death by going into the water, and identifying with him in his resurrected life as we come out of the water. At baptism, we are celebrating the beginning of a new life. When I was baptized the pastor of my church said: “Buried with Christ; raised to walk in newness of life.” In this new life we receive a new Dad, a new big brother, and an abiding Holy spirit. We are baptized into one God, but three persons.
No matter how good or bad your father was, you now have a perfectly loving, powerful and heavenly father. Dads and moms, think how much you love your children, how you long to provide for them, how often you think about them. Our Father in heaven is like that. Some of the words that describe our heavenly dad are “almighty,” “creator,” “rock,” and “savior.”
We have a big brother who came to show us how to walk rightly on this planet, which made a lot of religious people mad, and when push came to shove, he took the shove for us. Our big brother Jesus willingly died in our place, even though we were living as enemies when Jesus died for us. The Bible talks about Jesus as “savior,” “teacher,” “Lord,” “friend,” and “lamb of God.”
We have an abiding Holy Spirit that counsels and teaches, emboldens and empowers us. Holy Spirit is called “counselor,” “advocate,” “deposit,” “comforter,” and “power.” Our new life is full, rich and deep, because we’ve been baptized in His name.

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Love comes first.

Last week for youth group I asked Christen to make an illustration with two people standing behind a giant Valentine’s Day looking heart with the word “love” on it. I used it to teach and remind the group that for Christians love must be the first thing we present to a lost world. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that the greatest thing among faith, hope and love is love. Jesus said that the world would know that we are his disciples if we love one another. When Jesus was asked about which commandment was greatest, he gave two, and they are both love.
This Sunday Josh Kelly was preaching about love, about our love for God and for each other, and I was glad to hear it, because it is pretty easy to put other things in front of love, such as truth, being right, entertainment, sex, drama, work, and comfort.
What activities stir up love for God and for the people in your life? Prayer stirs up love in my life. As I begin to think about people, and as I bring their names into God’s presence, I experience love for them, and for God who loves them so much. It gives me a break from thinking about myself and what I want, and what I will do next. Giving stirs up my affections for God and others. When I give something or share something, I experience something that I know is true, i.e. that I love the person I’m sharing with, and love for God who has given so much abundance to me that I can just give something away or share something without fear of having enough. Silence stirs up my affection for God. Most of the time, God is the quietest being in my life. Only occasionally does God put something on me and not leave me alone about that thing. His general way of relating to me is waiting for me to wait on him, to sit with him and say something like: “Here I am, your son, your servant and your friend, to be with you.” Worship, such as singing my heart out reminds me how much I love God, and how blessed I am to be connected to such a great fountain as he.
Make love the first thing you put on in the morning. Bring it to the front in your church life. Tell people you love them. Show people you love them. Enjoy your heavenly dad and communion with Jesus and Holy Spirit.

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Redeemer's Church