Redeemer Church Of Waterford

In 600 BC Jerusalem was sacked in a ravage attack by the Babylonians. Psalm 137 is a beautiful song of lament by the Jewish remnant who were carried away from their homeland to captivity in Babylon. The Psalm moves from reflective longing rooted in emotion at the beginning to recollected learning rooted in God's word at the end. Memory is a powerful emotion that must always be kept in check by the promises of God.

The Millennial Generation (ages 21 - 37) is abandoning the traditional forms of worship for new forms of community that often fulfill the same functions as traditional religious communities. Pastor Edwards analyzes research from Harvard on this trend, and shows how a properly functioning, healthy church as defined by the Bible provides everything and more that the Millennial Generation is looking for.

The Gift of Prophecy is distinguished from preaching and teaching in that it involves an immediate insight from the Scriptures imparted by the Spirit of God. It is speaking to construct, to counsel, to console, and to convict.

The Apostle Paul urges Timothy to continue in the things he has learned. We examine the content of what Timothy has learned, the character of those from whom he learned it (his mother, his grandmother, and Paul), and the objective of knowing the holy Scriptures.

In 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, the Apostle Paul identifies 16 separate and distinct gifts which the Holy Spirit sovereignly distributes to members of the the church. In 1 Peter 4, the Apostle Peter divides these gifts into two groups: speaking gifts and serving gifts.

From Ephesians 2:22 we learn that the church is "an habitation of God through the Spirit." We turn now to consider the means by which the Spirit is building the Church: the gifts of the Spirit which have been sovereignly distributed to the particular members of the church.

The idea of a secret rapture of believers prior to the Second Coming of Jesus does not come from the Bible, but rather from the vision of a young girl during an awakening that was sweeping Scotland in the 1820s. Our pastor carefully takes us through Matthew 24 and 1 Thessalonians 4 to show that these texts do not teach a secret rapture.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit in sealing the believer, enabling the believer's access to the Father, revealing the word of God, producing unity in the church, and gifting each believer to serve the church in order to build it. What is involved in the sealing of the Holy Spirit? How do I know that I have been sealed by the Holy Spirit?

The healing of the lame man in Acts 3 is a picture of God's plan for the world when Jesus returns in power and great glory.

What is your place, purpose and role within the church? In answering that question, we first must answer two others: what is the church, and how do I become a part of the church. In today's message we see that we become a part of the church by the initiative of God who through His mighty power has raised Jesus from the dead, and through our faith in Jesus, God's mighty power extends to us in raising us from spiritual death and placing us within the body of Christ.

No one doctrine of the Bible can be taken in isolation from all of the other doctrines of the Bible. In 2 Peter 3, Peter's emphasis is a reply to the scoffers of his own day who denied the second coming of Jesus. But he places his reply in the context of five foundational Bible doctrines: Revelation, Creation, Eschatology, Redemption, and Sanctification.

What is my place, purpose, and role in the church? Before we can answer that question, we have to answer two others which Paul addresses in our text: what is the church? and how does anyone become a part of the church? Paul defines the church by giving us four pictures: a body, a community, a family, and a building.

Why does Paul glory only in the cross of Christ? Because he has come to see the futility of his earning a righteousness of his own by strictly observing the law. In the cross, he sees that God has eradicated Paul's works of righteousness and ours by condemning sin in the flesh of His dear Son, imputing to us the righteousness of His only Son by our faith in Him.

In his Second Epistle to Timothy, Paul sets the context for the Second Coming of Jesus when he contrasts loving the appearing of Jesus (chapter 4) with the competing desires of self-love, the love of money, and the love of pleasures (chapter 3).

In one verse from his letter to the Philippians (3:10), Paul gives to us the whole objective of the Christian life. What is the Christian life all about? What is its purpose? Its aim? Its goal? Its end? What is the thing that which most identifies us as followers of Jesus Christ?

Why is the cross offensive to modern sensibilities? The rational wisdom of this world, wisdom that is acquired through our experiences and observations, cannot comprehend - cannot even abide - the foolishness of the cross. Understanding what God was doing in Christ on the cross comes only through the Holy Spirit as He reveals "the hidden wisdom" of God which crushes the pride of man.

A Holy God demands of His sinful creatures a holiness equal to His own. How do we attain this holiness? How can we be reconciled to the holiness of God?

What was happening on the cross of Calvary? If Jesus was the Son of God, what is HE doing THERE? To ensure that our response to the cross is not one of sympathy or sentiment, we must have an understanding of exactly what God was doing in Christ on the cross.

Our wisdom, our strength, and our wealth all come from God. Just as quickly as these were attained, they can be lost in the providence of God. Therefore we have nothing to boast in except the Lord's lovingkindness, judgment and righteousness, which we can never lose.

Who is Jesus and why did He come? The only place from which an authoritative answer can come is from the testimony of the apostles: what they saw and what they heard.