Dear Church Family –
What do you see that would be a good thing for God that you wish someone else would do?
Timothy Keller died Friday. He was 72 and had battled cancer for a couple of years.
Timothy Keller will be remembered to history as one of the most influential Christian leaders of the 21st century. Even secular news outlets, like the New York Times, marked his death with long and positive tributes.
Keller came to Christ through Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. He became the pastor of a church in rural Virginia and his Presbyterian denomination asked him to oversee starting and developing new churches.
In that capacity, he asked a fellow pastor to start a new church in New York City. The pastor said, “No.” So, Tim Keller asked another pastor to start a church in NYC. He also said, “No.” So, Tim Keller took on the challenge himself.
In 1989 he moved his family to New York City and began Redeemer Presbyterian Church. 20 years later the church had grown to more than five thousand attendees and birthed more than a dozen daughter congregations in the immediate metropolitan area.
What do you see that would be a good thing for God that you wish someone else would do? Maybe God is calling you to do it?
Tim Keller’s books and sermons have had a huge influence on secular thinkers in America. Here’s a handful of my favorite Keller quotes:
“In many areas of life, freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, the liberating restrictions.”
“God directs His people not simply to worship but to sing His praises ‘before the nations.’ We are called not simply to communicate the gospel to nonbelievers; we must also intentionally celebrate the gospel before them.”
“Sermons aren’t just to make truth clear to the mind-but to make it real to the heart. Change happens by feeding the imagination new beauties.”
“To reach people gospel preachers must challenge the culture’s story at points of confrontation and finally retell the culture’s story, as it were, revealing how its deepest aspirations for good can be fulfilled only in Christ.”
“God always gives you what you would have asked for if you knew everything that He knows.”
God is doing great things at Emmaus Church and it’s because you are willing, happy, and eager to get involved in ministries that help people encounter Christ and His Word. There are many examples of ministries Emmaus members are involved in. Let me just mention three that are coming up this summer: Community VBS that started today, Emmaus VBS June 5-9, and Good News Bible Camp in Ark City July 17-21.
What do you see that would be a good thing for God that you wish someone else would do?
Because of Christ – Pastor Tim