How Many Motivations Are There For Godliness?: Is there just one proper gospel-centered rationale for holiness? Should we, in speaking about sanctification, avoid threats and warnings and coming judgment and focus simply on our acceptance in Christ? How many motivations does the Bible have for godliness? I see at least twenty. In the three chapters of 2 Peter alone.

5 Things To Look For In A Bible Teacher: If you’re looking for a preacher to learn from, or if you aspire to teach the Word to others, here are five traits of a good Bible teacher that we learn from the legacy of Levi.

So Much More Than Manners: Recently, I thought it would be good for me to go back and do a little study on thankfulness in the New Testament. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Not only was the study huge, it was hugely convicting.

An Imperfect Mom Is Still A Good Mom: I guess every mom gets to this point: “Perfect Mother was out of the question.  My blotted record had shown me that already.  But maybe Good Mother could be enough for my little ones.”

4 Lessons From The School Of Suffering: For all Christians, the likelihood is rather that as our discipleship continues, God will make us increasingly weakness-conscious and pain-aware, so that we may learn with Paul that when we are conscious of being weak, then— and only then— may we become truly strong in the Lord. And should we want it any other way?

How Eternity Changes Everything On Our Restlessness: You will know what other challenging questions you must ask yourself. We are all different, with different characters and enjoying or enduring different circumstances. So the temptation to locate our contentment in an aspect of our life right now will look different for all of us; but it will be there. There may well be a question you need to ask yourself, where you complete this sentence: "Have I settled for now in . . . ?" The way you and I finish that sentence shows us the part of our life where we need to let our future begin to affect our present; where our place in the new creation should transform our view of our life right now.

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At Redeemer we love foster care and adoption. We love that a perfect Father has adopted us. We love that imperfect moms and dads get to adopt. As a church we have seen a number of families adopt or serve as foster families and have more in the process. While participating in adoption it is an amazing gift God allows us to enjoy, it can also be overwhelming and intimidating. Below is a first hand account of what one family learned by going through the process of adopting their son from Ethiopia.

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Ethan's Reflection on the adoption process:

In Zechariah 7 God speaks through Zechariah “And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, 10 do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”  It is passages like these help us know that God has a heart for the fatherless that has impacted adoption journey and our decision to adopt.  

The reality of this "vertical" adoption of Christ for his people and how we were fatherless and God chose to adopt us as sons and daughters has been probably one of the most impactful realities and truths that drove Kelli and I to adopt our son Kenesa.  Without God's grace and mercy of the "vertical" adoption and an understanding of what that took and how amazing it is, we may have not have been compelled and burdened to care for the fatherless in our world and felt called to "horizontally" adopt a son who had no father half way across the world. This language from the small book "Reclaiming Adoption" by Dan Cruver and others has really impacted us.

God also calls us to care for those who are oppressed or are prone to oppression and we have a deep conviction to God's call to those people as well. Other passages in the Bible that have compelled us much like Zechariah 7:10 is Isaiah 1:23, Jeremiah 5:28 and Exodus 22:21-22 to name a few. Even before God would reveal his Son (Jesus) he was showing us his character and his care for the needy oppressed (fatherless) in the Old Testament.  He knew what we ultimately needed but He also cares about the display of his Glory at all times and this is one way his Glory is shown; the picture of “horizontal” adoption. What it demonstrates is that the Kingdom of God is at hand and it is coming in fullness one day.  God will continue to demonstrate and show his rule and reign over the earth.

We started the process of adopting our son in September of 2011.  It took nearly 2 years for that reality of legally adopting Kenesa to be complete and we were able to bring him home in late August of 2013. It was a very tough process (to say the least). Two of the toughest aspects for us were the unknown length and many ups and downs of the process and also the sacrifice financially that we had to make to bring him home.  God provided for these needs and guided us through these struggles through our local church family as well as our immediate family. The Abba Fund enabled Kelli and I to obtain a no interest loan that paid for the airplane tickets for our first visit to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This trip was made for the purpose of our court process of legally adopting Kenesa in Ethiopia. It was a blessing to have that paid for and to know that those funds came from the generosity of individuals in our local church.

We now know that this child, our son, has a home and an earthly father. Hopefully one day will be able to call his heavenly father "Savior".  Pray that every night for him.

Kelli's thoughts on the process of adopting her son:

The adoption process has so many highs and lows. I will never forget the day we received our referral for Kenesa. It was February 22, 2013 at 10:00 am. I was getting ready to leave the house and the agency called asking if I wanted to see a picture of our son! I was in tears and so excited! I raced down to Ethan’s office with our daughters Lucy and Madeline; we all laid eyes on that picture of our son for the first time. He was beautiful. I instantly knew the Lord had picked him to be a part of our family. We then had to wait 3 months until we got to fly and meet our sweet boy for the first time. Meeting Kenesa was one of the best days of my life. He had and still has a huge smile. Even though we knew we had to go back home and leave him behind leaving Kenesa in Ethiopia was so hard. We had to return home and waited for the U.S. Embassy approval.

I would wake up every night at 3 am checking my email (1 pm Ethiopia time) for that approval email.  I would constantly be thinking of him lying there in his crib and I wanted to be with him so badly. Why was this taking so long? Why couldn’t my son be at home with me where he was supposed to be? In those moments I had to preach scripture to myself, I had to pray, I had to remember that I have comfort and security in my Savior not in this adoption and its process. In those moments God was telling me to “be still” He needed me to know that he was in control, he had been in control this whole time and that he was going to bring my Son home. My good friend told me that when I pictured my son laying in his crib that I needed to picture Jesus laying in the crib with him and that was massively helpful.  

We finally got clearance to bring him home in August of 2013. Receiving the email that we could bring home Kenesa was another day I will never forget. Traveling to pick him up and taking him home to meet the rest of his family was just amazing. There were times during the process that I was angry, angry with God, angry with our agency, angry at the increasing cost, angry at how long it took. Our church family and immediate family was such a huge support to Ethan and I. Praying for us, giving financially, and just loving and caring for us as we went through this process.

What I have learned is that God’s timing is not our timing but it is perfect, just and right. God needs us to “Be still and know that I am God”. He has always has a plan; he wants us to trust in him. 

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. - Ephesians 1:3-10

Through Christ we have been adopted into God's family. Through Christ we now have an identity as sons and daughters of God. Through Christ we are shown that adoption is an amazing eternal reality by God that we get to show towards others here on earth. Through Christ we are free to pursue earthly adoption, to bring children who have no family and bring them into our family. Adoption and Foster Care are beautiful moments that ultimately point to the wonderful process God went through to adopt us into His family. It is because of Jesus Christ we are able to say we have been adopted for eternity, and the wonderful part about it is that we can not repay God for what he has done to adopt us. Grace from God is an eternal gift but it cost sure cost something. It cost our Savior His life. 

If you know of someone that has gone, going or plans on going through the process of adoption and/or foster care. Take some time this week to ask them their story.

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Weekly Once-Over (01.30.2014):

Finding Your True Identity: It is Jesus who pursues, secures, and maintains our position in the family of God. He died that we might be restored to a right relationship with his Father, back into the family we were originally created to be a part of. Jesus, our servant king, gave us his indwelling Spirit and sent us out on his mission. It’s all about Jesus.

How To Make Accountability Work: Accountability has gotten a bad rap. It is easy to see why, I guess. When it comes to battling against sin, and especially those stubborn, addictive sins, accountability relationships are sometimes held up as a cure-all, a near guarantee of success. Yet often they end up being a means of commiseration more than challenge, a time when Christians sit around feeling sorry for one another rather than full-on battling against sin.

6 Very Simple Ways To Your Super Bowl Missional: The Superbowl is coming up and, whether you like football or not, it’s a very big deal to the ones we want to reach with the gospel. One of the most basic principles of biblical mission is a willingness to adopt someone else’s culture to reach them for Christ.

Jesus Is Better: As we share our faith, may we do so with the winsome confidence that life in Jesus is so much richer, fuller, and better than any life apart from him. The gospel is good news! Lives that reflect a joy deeper than circumstances lovingly bear witness to this soul-satisfying truth: Jesus is better.

The Grammys, Grace, and The Gospel: 3 Things the Grammys Can Remind Christians: So, the Grammys are not representative of our culture, but in some ways they are indicative of its shifts. And, the Grammy moment is a good moment to remind ourselves of a few things.

Christians and Movies: Are We Contextualizing or Compromising: Is our bigger problem a lack of contextualization? Or is it that we’ve compromised ourselves without knowing it? That’s the issue here. And I suppose I worry more that we are failing our neighbor because of our compromise than because we’ve failed to contextualize. Alissa is right that film watching is a matter of wisdom, not fear. But my great fear is that we are being unwise.

Why I am a Continuationist: All the gifts of the Spirit, whether tongues or teaching, prophecy or mercy, healing or helping, were given (among other reasons) for the edification, building up, encouraging, instructing, consoling, and sanctifying of the body of Christ. Therefore, even if the ministry of the miraculous gifts to attest and authenticate has ceased, a point I concede only for the sake of argument, such gifts would continue to function in the church for the other reasons cited.

Why I am a Cessationist: Now, could God in cutting-edge missionary situations grant miracles and signs and wonders to accredit the gospel as he did in apostolic times? Yes. But that's not the same thing as having these gifts as a regular feature in the ongoing life of the church. If the signs and wonders of the apostles have returned, we should see the blind receiving their sight, the lame walking, and the dead being raised. God heals today (sometimes dramatically), but the healing of colds, the flu, TMJ, stomach, and back problems, and so forth aren't in the same category as the healings found in the Scriptures. If people truly have the gift of healing and miracles today, they need to demonstrate such by performing the kinds of healings and miracles found in the Bible.

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Church membership is an important part of Redeemer Church. But as a staff we get a ton of different questions from people about why as a church we desire for people to become members. To answer this question, you will see below we put a quote from 9Marks.org from an article they wrote titled why every Christian should become members and second we wanted you to hear from a few of our current members explaining why they love being a member of a church. May these responses help you further understand the joy it truly is to be members of a local church.

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Every Christian should join a church because Scripture requires it. Granted, there is no direct command in Scripture that says, “Every Christian must join a local church,” but two factors in Scripture indicate that every Christian should be a member of a local church.

1. Jesus established the church to be a public, earthly institution that would mark out, affirm, and oversee those who profess to believe in him (Matt. 16:18-19, 18:15-20). Jesus established the church to publicly declare those who belong to him in order to give the world a display of the good news about himself (John 17:21, 23; see also Eph. 3:10). Jesus wants the world to know who belongs to him and who doesn’t. And how is the world to know who belongs to him and who doesn’t? They are to see which people publicly identify themselves with his people in the visible, public institution he established for this very purpose. They’re to look at the members of his church. And if some people claim to be part of the universal church even though they belong to no local church, they reject Jesus’ plan for them and his church. Jesus intends for his people to be marked out as a visible, public group, which means joining together in local churches.
2. Scripture repeatedly commands Christians to submit to their leaders (Heb. 13:17; 1 Thess. 5:12-13). The only way to do that is by publicly committing to be members of their flock, and saying in effect, “I commit to listening to your teaching, following your direction, and to submitting to your leadership.” There’s no way to obey the scriptural commands to submit to your leaders if you never actually submit to them by joining a local church.

 - 9Marks (Why Join A Church?)

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Why Do I Love Being A Member Of A Local Church?

Quote From Vanessa: "I choose to become a member of a local church because I love Jesus. Jesus loves his bride the church and I want to be more like Jesus. I also get to be a part of this really awesome family. I have the security of being in a family. I know the people who will be there to teach me, lead me and support me. On the flip side, I get to be a part of that for someone else. And the reason you should become a member of a local church is because you gain a family. Jesus loves and his committed to his bride and we should too." 

Quote From Brandon: "Admittedly, a big part of the decision to become a member at Redeemer was my upbringing. My parents instilled in me that church involvement was vital to ones’ growth as a disciple of Christ. As I got older, I came to a deeper understanding that membership isn’t a formality and it’s not rooted in my service. Membership is rooted in covenant. This means that I have committed to know others, and to being known. It means that a specific local church is my closest spiritual family. They’ve committed to praying for me, and I’ve committed to praying for them. Should I fall, they shall seek me out, and vice versa. Membership has been a huge blessing to me. It’s not always easy, but the hardship is worth it." 

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Weekly Once-Over:

Where Is "The Line" In Dating?: Hundreds, maybe thousands of times I have been asked, in some form or fashion, “How far can we go sexually before marriage?” Often, though not always, the heart behind the question is unholy and unhealthy. There is a powerful illusion that sexual sin is only what we do with our hands, and not also what we do with our hearts.

Art of Presence: I’d say that what these experiences call for is a sort of passive activism. We have a tendency, especially in an achievement-oriented culture, to want to solve problems and repair brokenness — to propose, plan, fix, interpret, explain and solve. But what seems to be needed here is the art of presence — to perform tasks without trying to control or alter the elemental situation. Allow nature to take its course. Grant the sufferers the dignity of their own process. Let them define meaning. Sit simply through moments of pain and uncomfortable darkness. Be practical, mundane, simple and direct.

Daddy Fails Redeemed By Jesus: All fathers experience moments where they feel like failures. Do you know how Jesus can redeem those moments?

The Gospel For A Gay Friend: Josh is no caricature. His experiences and story are true, and they are common. What if Josh were your neighbor or your co-worker or your son? How would you communicate the gospel to him? How would you tell him about the forgiveness of sins, the community of believers, and true identity in Jesus?

Do I Have To Be A Member At A Local Church To Follow Christ?: We live in a commitment-averse society. Single people are delaying marriage until later and later in life, and lowering their expectations for marriage. And while a few generations ago, careers were rooted in a company and workers had a strong sense of corporate loyalty, today people change jobs every few years. We avoid the burden of commitment at every opportunity. Yet we celebrate a gospel that begins with a radical, unshakeable commitment toward us.

Atheist's Letter From Birmingham Jail: In April 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested for his participation in the organized, non-violent marches and sit-ins against racial segregation in Birmingham. On the same day, eight white Alabama clergymen, some Christian, some not, published an open letter on unity that decried the demonstrations and urged patience, asking people to restrict their efforts to the courts and not the streets...

Don't Hate, But Pray For Those Who Hate Pro-Life Convictions: In the never-ending battle over abortion, it’s easy to lose yourself in the heat of the moment and to feel a sense of disdain toward those who defend the “right” to take the life of an unborn child. But as Christians, we must not give in to the cultural tendency to denigrate and demonize people on the other side of the political aisle. How can we make a stand for the unborn and yet also love our political opponents? By praying for them by name. It is hard to hate someone you pray for.

How Is God Working In The World? Understanding Miracles and Providence: So what is a miracle, and how is a miracle distinguishable from regular divine action? How can we maintain both a robust understanding of general divine providence and special divine intervention in miracles? In order to understand miracles rightly, Christians must account for God's everyday sustaining providence.

3 Check Points For Spiritual Drift: Drifting is something that happens over time. It’s slow and steady, almost imperceptible. It can happen so gradually in fact that it goes without notice. That’s the real problem with drifting spiritually – you don’t know it’s happening until it’s already happened. But what if you could? Are there certain checkpoints that, if they appear in your life, you know that the drifting has started? That the rope tied to the anchor of faith has started to let out? That you are slowly moving in a direction that you didn’t intend to go? I think there are, and here’s three to think about. 

The Gospel And Work: Your calling is determined over time, as you process what you want to do, what God has gifted you to do and the opportunities He’s placed before you. So why do we think this calling is just limited to pastors? Can you not go through the same process to be an engineer, a stockbroker, or a stay-at-home mom?

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Weekly Once-Over:

Discipleship: When Is Enough Enough?: How can leaders tell if they are making mature disciples? Paul gives us three places to look: the heart, the head, and the hands of disciples.

Should Broke Tim Get Married And Have Kids?: If you are both making poor money, should you still trust God, get married, and start having kids?

What I Learned About Sabbaticals by Finally Taking One: And it struck me that God had called me on sabbatical for that moment—to heal me of wounds that had gone so deep that I hardly knew what life was like without them. Feeling the great surge of letting everything wash away, feeling stripped bare, I was reminded that his grace is sufficient, and he does in fact make all things new. That was our 42nd day. Now that I've finally taken a sabbatical, here are a few things I've learned.

How Not To Create A Missional Movement: Rather than present our polished vision, values and practices, I want to take a little different tack – I want to candidly talk about putting these ideas into practice in a real church.  More specifically, I want to be completely honest with you about our failures at The Austin Stone.  Over the last 7 years, we have been in the process of transitioning to missional communities, and we’ve made plenty of mistakes...

Parents: Don't Just Give Your Kids Technology: I’m surprised by how many parents just give their kids technology – without taking the opportunity to train them in responsibility, accountability, and wisdom. This is a sure way to raise a spoiled brat or a selfish, entitled college student.

What I Appreciate (And Don't) About Prosperity Preachers: Prosperity teaching leans on Malachi 3 to cast God as a big piñata in the sky, chock-full of material wealth. This interpretation of the text is more about how to feed greed than glorify God.

Gospel Amnesia In The Local Church: Have you ever felt ashamed or guilty because you can’t seem to keep up with someone else’s sanctification? On the other side: have you ever let words slip from your lips (e.g. how many times a week you do family worship, what books you are reading, which parenting and education method you are using, etc.) to show how far along your family is on the sanctification spectrum? In other words, have you ever “preached Christ” out of envy, rivalry, or selfish ambition (Philippians 1:15–17)? I certainly have...

Holy-Love Wins: Holiness without love yields sternness. Love without holiness yields sentimentality. The Maker of heaven and earth is neither stern nor sentimental, for he is simultaneously holy and love...

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