Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Garden of God

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

If you stand back a little bit from Genesis 1 and 2, you’ll see that perhaps the main thing the first two chapters of the Bible are about is work, job and vocation.  We’re told in Genesis 2 that God sends the human race into the world to work. He put them in the garden to work it and take care of it.  With regard to the idea of work and vocation, there is 1) an assumption, 2) a direction, 3) a burden, and 4) a provision made.  This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 7, 2008. Series: Bible: The Whole Story - Creation and Fall. Scripture: Genesis 2:4-17. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation

The Bible presents us with a grand narrative of God's redemptive work in the world. But for many of us, parts of the Bible can seem confusing, disjointed, or even irrelevant. Today, Tim Keller is teaching on the big story of the Bible, examining how each part fits together to reveal the character of God and his purposes for us. After you listen, we invite you to go online to Gospelonlife.com and sign up for our email updates.

When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly newsletter with articles from Dr. Keller as well as other valuable gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at gospelonlife.com. The scripture reading this morning is taken from the Book of Genesis, chapter two, verses verses 2 through 17. By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing,

so on the seventh day, he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it, he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to work the ground. But streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. The Lord God formed the manrils the breath of life,

and the man became a living being. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east and eaten, and there he put the man he had formed, and the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden, were the tree of life,

and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river watering the garden flowed from Eden, from there it was separated into foreheadaters. The name of the first is the Peshawan. It winds through the entire land of Havala, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good. Aromatic resin and anus are also there. The name of the second river is the Kahan. It winds through the entire land of Kush. The name of the second river is the Cajon. It winds through the entire land of Kush. The name of the third river is the Tigris. It runs along the east side of a shore.

And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man. You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For when you eat of it, you will surely die.

This is the word of the Lord. We've been looking at the book of Genesis, and if you stand back a little bit from Genesis 1 and 2, Genesis 1 and 2, you'll see that one of the, perhaps the main thing, the first two chapters of the book of the Bible are about is work. Job, vocation, work. See, the beginning of chapter two, it says, God rested from his work.

And we're also told in the middle of Genesis two that God sends humanity, the human race into the world to work. He put them in the garden to work it and take care of it. And I'd like us to see, again, all these texts are kind of overview texts that give us big picture, big pictures of important themes in the Bible. I'd like you to notice that there are here, with regard to the idea of work and vocation and job, there is an assumption, a direction, a burden, and a provision made. In this chapter, there is an assumption, a direction with God to work, a burden, and

a provision. And we can go through this actually kind of quick. First, there's an assumption. The assumption, a kind of philosophical, very important assumption behind the Christian teaching on work. You see actually in verses 7 and 8 where it says, in the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. And verse 8, now the Lord God planted a garden in the east.

And if you consider that in the Grico Roman world, you might say in the Western ancient world, certainly after the time of Socrates, and even before, manual labor was considered demeaning. The Greeks believed that the material world was bad and the spirit was good, and therefore work that didn't use your hands, work that kept you away from matter as it were, like philosophy or poetry or something like that. That was more enobling and working in the dirt, you know, digging a ditch. That was demeaning.

It was actually dehumanizing. It was considered dehumanizing. And here in the beginning of the book of Genesis, we have God literally with his hands in the dirt. God is a manual labor, and the dirt. God is a manual labor, planting a garden, hands in the dust. And you say, well, maybe, you know, that was the book of Genesis and maybe the rest of the Bible doesn't back that up. Oh, no, you're wrong. Because it's by no means a hiccup, because here we get into the New Testament, and we get to the New Testament, and of course, here we are in a Christmas theme. We see God not just simply in contact with the physical world, not just in contact with the physical, but becoming physical. In Jesus Christ, becoming incarnate, getting a body, and then beyond that, we see God raising Jesus from the dead, resurrecting the body,

and in Romans 8, we're told that God eventually is going to redeem our bodies. Now, what does all this mean? It's very, very important, extremely important. Here's the assumption, though we can look at it at two levels. The top level of what this means is, this is an amazing statement of the dignity of all work, all work, making a pair of shoes, cleaning a house is bringing order out of chaos. And what we're being told is the simplest kinds of work, even manual work, images the creator, because after all, here's God.

Here's God bringing order out of chaos, the spirit of God moved across the face of the waters, everything was without form and void. Chaos and God spoke. And you have this amazing statement of who God is and what he's done. Next thing you know, he puts people in the garden and says, now you bring Lord out of chaos. Clear it, tell it. Manual labor.

The simplest work has dignity. But just beneath that is this basic principle, and it's very important. Ordinary life. Ordinary physical material life. Is a good in itself. If you're a Christian and you understand the doctrine of the goodness of creation, if you understand what Genesis is saying,

it's a good thing in itself. This world is not, as some people might tell you, a kind of temporary world, a temporary theater for individual salvation narratives. In other words, what's really important is people get their soul saved and go to heaven, which means what's really important is not digging ditches, not farming,

not tilling the ground, not making shoes, that's not really important. What I'm doing is important. I'm preaching. You know, I'm bringing people to faith and cry. That's what's really important. See, ordinary life, this is, this is unimportant. And yet here what we have, if that's true, why would God have taken on a body, resurrected a body, said he's going to redeem bodies. That's the only way we can understand the poetry of the wisdom literature, like the book of Job, chapters 38, 39, 40, or the Psalms. Where we see God, all I can say this, is we see God doing bear face rejoicing in ordinary

life, the arc of an eagle's flight, or the galloping of a horse. Now, once the best movie depicting the galloping of a horse, showing it and making you feel it because of the, it puts you almost in the seat, the sounds, everything is the black stallion. The 1980 movie, and once a year or so, Kathy and I will get the thing out and just watch the ending where the boy is on the horse just galloping.

And it moves as to tears, more and more as we get older, and we believe that that's a sign of spiritual progress. Why? Listen, here's the book of Job. Job 39, God speaking to Job. Listen, God says, do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane? He paused fiercely, the horse does,

rejoicing in his strength and charges into the fray. The horse laughs at fear, afraid of nothing, in frenzied excitement, he eats up the ground because he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. Here's God, just rejoicing in the flowing main, the galloping, you know, horses loved to win, that's why they're such, they race so well. And here's God rejoicing in it,

he says, I made that. Why would he be doing that? Here's why. If the idea that, oh, if you're a gardener, or if you just clean houses, or if you're a farmer, well, OK, go ahead, do it, and tie, then give the money to me, because I'm really doing the Lord's work. Because this world's going to burn up

and Sunday we're all going to be in heaven in our souls, and that's all that matters. That's not what the book of Genesis says. It's not what the arc of the whole Bible says. There's going to be a new heavens and new earth. God's going to redeem our bodies. You know what that means? I have the temporary job.

Not the farmer, my job, and some of you who are doctors. We're going to be out of a job eventually. See? But the whole purpose of all this individual salvation, the whole purpose of Jesus Christ coming is the new heavens and new Worth, in other words, eventually we're all going to be able to gallop in ways that we can't right now.

I've never galloped. We're all going to be able to guard in ways, oh my goodness, we're all going to be such gardeners. And that is the end result of the story of the Bible. And therefore, there are no second-class jobs, the dignity of all work, the care of creation. That's the first assumption. Secondly, there's a direction. And now the direction actually tells us something about what work really is. And you see this town here in verse 15 and 16, especially verse 15, and it says, in the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to

work it and take care of it. Now here's what's fascinating about this. People say, well, what's work all about? Here we have it. Gardening is the paradigm for work. It was the man, Adam, we'll get to Adam and Eve later, of course, but the man was the representative of the whole human race, and therefore anything God asks him to do represents the whole human race, and therefore gardening represents all work.

How that? Well, it's perfect. Think. First of all, a gardener doesn't destroy the garden, of course, otherwise you can't bring up food, you can't bring up flowers, but the gardener messes with the gardener. The gardener is not a park ranger, is he? The gardener doesn't just walk around keeping people, don't walk on the grass.

That's not what the gardener does. And let's not be romantic about this. The gardener's going to cut down some trees. Cut down some trees, of course, because you know why? Here's what work is. Work is rearranging the raw material of a particular domain to draw out its potential for the flourishing of everyone. Work is rearranging the raw material of a particular domain for the flourishing of everyone.

That means you don't destroy the domain, but you don't just leave it go. You mess with it. You develop it. You're creative. You have to clear out the ground so that the sun can come in so we can have food. Why do we need food? Our bodies to flourish. Maybe we need flowers for our souls to flourish.

Now all work is like that. So for example, what's music? Music is taking the raw material of sound, which is part of our physical world, taking the raw material of sound and what? Reforming it so that when we hear it, it brings meaning to our lives. Now, why music brings meaning to our lives is another sermon? Pretty mysterious, actually. But the fact is, you're taking raw material and you're reforming it to bring about human flourishing or what's architecture. Architecture says, ah, here's the stone in the ground, here's the ore in the ground, but I'm not

going to leave it there. I'm going to take out the raw materials and I'm going to form them into bridges and into building. So why? So there can be human interaction. So there can be human culture. So there can be human society. So it can get across the East River and come preach to you. Otherwise, probably, if I had a swim every Sunday, I might not make it most Sundays. So what is, of course, you'd have to have a boat, which of course is culture.

Or what is a story? If you write a book, a novel, or if you write a play, what are you doing? You're taking the raw material of human experience and forming it into narratives to make sense out of our lives. So Mark Noel says, writes this, he says, who formed the world of nature, which provides the raw material for physical sciences?

Who formed the universe of human interactions, which is the raw material for politics, economic sociology and history? Who formed the source of all harmony, form, and narrative pattern, which is the raw material for art? Who is the source of the human mind, which is the raw material for philosophy and psychology?

And who, moment by moment, maintains the connection between our minds and the world beyond our minds. God did and God does. God creates these domains, and he puts us in them to do what? Creatively, graciously, rearrange them for the purpose of human flourishing. I'll go one step further. Richard Mao, President of Fuller Seminary some years ago, was talking to a group of investment bankers and he says what he said.

And I think it's appropriate. He says when he reads Genesis 1 and 2, he sees something. He says, here's the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Here's God. And God had resources. Love, personality, community, glory. But God didn't sit on his resources. The Triangod decided,

though the Triangod knew what it would cost, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. The Triangod leveraged his resources and created space for whole universe of beings to share what he had, which was love and personality and community and glory. And therefore, Richard Mouse says, if you're an investment banker and you see a need that's not filled,

you see a talent over here that could fill it. And then you risk your resources, and you leverage your resources to get that person, to meet that need, to produce a product that creates jobs makes life better You're not he says if you do that just godly your godlike Now do we understand something? Here we're being told that the purpose of work is to be very creative is But don't forget this this works for a shoemaker, this works for a ditch digger, this works for a garden, it works for an investment banker, it works

for a musician, it's creation, it's creation's expression of creative energy in the service of others. You're rearranging a particular domain to bring about flourishing. Now if that's true, if you take point one and point two of this sermon, you suddenly realize we're on a collision course with the culture of New York City. Because yesterday I was talking to a teacher who's taught in the independent schools and the private schools

New York's for a long time. And she said, if I'm about to give a person a kid in my schools, a B plus, they look at me and they say, you might as well kill me right now in my life's over. A B plus, in New York City, they kind of have an A. There's only so many schools I can get into and still have a life and still get the job I need. And it's extremely clear that their understanding of work

is this is how I get status, this is how I get money, this is how I get a place in the elite. And then no way are they thinking about the dignity of all work, and in no way are they thinking about work primarily in terms of impact and service to others. And as a result, what happens if that's your view of work? Work a holism, you know, overwork, or taking a job that you have absolutely no passion for,

and that eventually is going to eat you up with emptiness over the years, even though it makes you a lot of money. Or just a version, a refusal to even go out and get a job because you know the jobs that you think are the only ones that are worth it aren't yours. They're not available for you. Looking for a new way to deepen your faith

and understanding of Christianity this summer? If you are, we'd like you to consider the new city, Catechism devotional. Based on the historic Catechisms of the Christian Church, this devotional offers 52 weeks of thought provoking questions and answers that explore the foundational beliefs of the faith. Each week includes a scripture passage,

a prayer, and a brief meditation that will challenge and inspire you. Commentaries are written by contemporary pastors, such as John Piper, Timothy Keller, and Kevin DeYoung, as well as historical figures, such as Augustine, John Calvin, and Martin Luther. The new city-caticism devotional is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the hope of Christ's love with people all over the world.

So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Dorothy Sayers during World War II came to understand that an entire, hey she said, an entire culture had the biblical view of work forced on them, and everybody was happier during World War II in Britain than they were before or after, and she puts it like this.

She says, the habit of thinking about work is something one does to make money, and to get a position in society is so ingrained in us that we can scarcely imagine what a revolutionary change would be to think otherwise. So often people become doctors not primarily to relieve suffering, but because they want to bring themselves and their families up in the world.

People become lawyers not because they have a passion for justice, but just to bring themselves and their families up in the world. During World War II, one of the great surprises that many had in the army was they found themselves with the very first time in their lives happy. Why? For the first time in their lives, they found themselves doing something not for the pay because it was miserable and not for the social standing because everybody was thrown in

together, but for the sake of getting something done that needed doing. And then this is the great sentence. She says, work is the gracious expression of creative energy in the service of others. Work is the gracious expression of creative energy in the service of others. She said, interestingly enough, she says there was a whole generation of British people that during the war, we're forced into a biblical understanding of work. They were forced to do things not for status because everybody was put together, not for money because the pay was miserable, but everybody knew we got to get this done,

so our society can survive. They knew what needed to be done. They knew that everything they were doing was really paying off for everybody, and they were happy. She actually says a little later on, she says, people, after the war, people went right back to the normal way in which we worked, which we worked to get status. We work to make money, we work to get ourselves up, we work for an identity. We work to make a name for ourselves, everybody's miserable. So there's the assumption, there's the direction.

Thirdly, very briefly. This text also tells us about a burden on work. Now I hate to even go here because it's actually getting into Genesis 3. In Genesis 3, we'll hear about sin, we'll hear about the fall, but at the very end of the text, God says to them, you are free to eat of any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For when you eat of it, literally in the Hebrew it says, on the day you eat of it, you will surely die. Now he says that there, but when you get to Genesis 3, they eat the, and they don't seem to drop

over dead. So people say, wait a minute, he said in Genesis 2, the day you eat of it, you will surely die. Genesis 3, they don't die, but you're missing the point. Death is more than just physical death. Death is the second law of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics is everything's falling apart. No matter how hard you work, no matter how hard you exercise, no matter what you put on your face to, you're dying, you're falling apart. Everybody is socially, culturally, spiritually, vocationally, everything is falling apart. Death descended upon us when we lost our covenant relationship with God, and it's eating everything up.

And that includes work. That's the reason why God actually says, though, you're going to continue to work, thorns will come up very often instead of fruit. And see, if you forget point one and two of this sermon, and you forget that work is basically about the service of others, it's a gracious expenditure of creative energy released in the service of others. If you forget about that, and you say,

no, no, work is really a way to get a name, way to get my family and myself up in society, then you're gonna have a cynical attitude toward work. You're gonna just take jobs because they make money and you're not going to do a good job at them. You're going to do a good job only because you want to make money and do well. There's a cynical attitude toward work that comes out of that. But if you forget this, if you forget the doctrine of creation, there's a cynical attitude

toward work. But if you forget the doctrine of the fall, you may have a romantic attitude toward work. And I can't tell you how many young people say, oh, I don't care about money, I want to serve people. I just want a job in which my gifts are being used and everybody in the team works together and it's collegial and it's a creative environment. And we have lots and lots of room for thinking about things and everybody cooperates and I usually say, so you really don't want a job. Because you know, things fall apart.

The center cannot hold. Mayor Anarchy is loose upon the world. That's what we have now. And that happens to work. Work is laborious now. Work is difficult now. Net work is always frustrating. You know, one of the horrible things is that when you're young, you know,

you have all the stamina and you have all this idealism, but not until you get old, you realize how stupid you were. And then by the time you realize how stupid you were, you're tired all the time. And then you begin to realize somewhere in your 60s, I think you realize, my gosh, there was a day when I was 38 that it was all together and I missed it. I just didn't realize it. And that's part of the problem with work. Another part of the problem is you get your team together and two people have an ego clash and they leave and you can never get your team back together again.

Just when you have the people together, you can't raise the capital. Just when you have the capital, you don't have the people. And it's just things fall apart. And you cannot have a room, sometimes you have to go out and get a job just to support yourself and your family. And it may not be a great job. See, to either have a cynical or romantic view of work means you don't understand the doctrine of creation

or you don't understand the doctrine of the fall. So there is the assumption. There is the direction. There is the burden, but finally, there's a provision. My first church, our first church was in Hope, Well, Virginia, small blue collar town. Everybody in our church was a union person who worked for the plants. And one of the things I knew is that when you first got a job

at the plant, you had a week of vacation. If you work so many years, you get two weeks, you work so many years, you got three weeks. So you had to work for your rest. You had to earn your rest. You had to work for your vacation. But in the Bible, it's the way around. You need a deep rest as a free gift

if you're gonna do your work properly. And I mean by that, just two things. You need the rest of peace and you need the rest of hope. And here's what I mean by the rest of peace. Do you notice, if you're reading through Genesis 1 and 2, it's pretty striking when you get to the seventh day, because every other spot you have, and the evening and the morning with the first day,

and the evening and the morning with the second day, and the evening and the morning with the third day, when you get to the seventh day, it says God rested, and it doesn't say anything about evening and morning. And in the book of Hebrews many years later, the New Testament says this about that. Book of Hebrew says, therefore, we see that the promise of entering his rest still stands.

See, the seventh day has never, has never ended. It says, there remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God. And we who have believed in Christ rest from our own work even as God did from His. What's that mean? What does it mean by resting from our work? Does it mean we don't have to have a job? No, of course not. The Hebrews writers are not saying that. Here's what it means. It was, I love this comment, Michael Musto, you know, who's a critic for the Village Voice, many years ago, I pulled this out of the Village Voice. He was talking about Fashion Week and the Fashionistas,

and I know it's a snarky comment, but it's also incredibly insightful. He says, Fashion Week is that period of ritualized yearning in which people jockey for visibility, hoping that nearness to a runway will purge them of that nagging feeling of soullessness. It's being snarky, but he's actually being right. He's what he's saying. He says, look at all these people running around. They're working so hard.

What are they really working for? Are they working to create beautiful clothes? Yeah, but that's not why they're so desperate. That's not why they're working so hard. That's not why they're so anxious. That's not why they're working so hard. That's not why they're so anxious. That's not why they're actually, you know, biting and scratching to get up the ladder and trampling on each other and exploiting each other in order to be successful. Why? That nagging feeling of solaceness.

You see, we're trying to prove ourselves so many of us in our work. We lost something in the garden. When we stood before the face of God and knew Him. When we were in a relationship with God, we knew our value, we knew our lives counted, we knew our significance, and now that we've lost that, we've got to find it somewhere else, and that's what we're working for. There's a work underneath our work. And it's not the work up here making

the music or making the clothes or, you know, farming or, you farming or starting your company and producing your product, that's not the work that really wears you. It's this work. And Hebrew says that that work you can rest from. You can have a deep, deep, deep sense that God loves you, a deep sense of your life counts. And then when you move out into the workplace, you won't work as hard. Yes, you will. In some ways, you work better because the work is no longer about you. It's about the work. The work is about the clothes now. It's about the music now. It's not about you getting a name for yourself. Well, how do we get that rest? Do you realize that at the end of the work of

creation, God sat down and said, it is finished and rested, Genesis 2. But at the end of the work of creation, God sat down and said, it is finished and rested, Genesis 2. But at the end of the work of redemption, just before he died, Jesus Christ says, it is finished. What was finished? I live the life you should have lived and I die, the death you should have died is what Jesus is saying. I have done everything necessary to put you into a right relationship with God.

And if you get that relationship, but by believing in me, then finally, you'll get the deep rest of your souls, the deep peace. And then you'll be able to go out there and you'll be about the close and about serving the people and about the music and about serving the people and not about you. That's the provision. I know I said, there's also a hope of, there's also a rest of peace in your heart through justification by faith. There's also a rest of hope.

And let me just tell you about this briefly. You know, J.R. Tolkien had a horrible time in the mid-40s trying to write his big book, and he thought he would never get it out. And he wrote a little short story called Leif Bynigel that means a lot to me. And it's a little short story called Leif by Niggle that means a lot to me. And it's a little short story in which he was trying to exercise the demons. He felt he was ever, ever going to finish the book. And the story is about a little, as an artist named Niggle, and there was a village who paid Niggle, who was an artist, to come and create this big fresco on the side of their town hall. And after years and years of working, he had in his mind a tree, a beautiful tree in his mind.

He was gonna paint this beautiful tree on the back of the city hall. And they paid all this money for Niggled Accommod, he worked for years and years underneath this covering. And one day I think somebody, if I remember correctly, somebody pulled the covering off after years and found out that Niggled had only ever gotten one leaf painted.

They said, well, where's the rest of it? And he says, well, I'm trying, I'm trying. But he had trouble. He was, he's typical. He's a person who can conceive of far more than he was able to produce. He has goals, he has vision, he has things he wants to get done in his work, that he never will be able to produce because of, because of the thorns, because the, because the world is broken. And yet what happens is, Niggled dies and he's on a train to heaven. It's a funny short story. And he suddenly sees something off to the right and he says, stop the train, he jumps

off the train and he runs up the hill. And this is what it says. He's on the outskirts of heaven and he runs up the hill and this is what it says. He's on the outskirts of heaven, he runs up the hill and this is what he says, before him stood the tree capital T, his tree finished. If you could say that of a tree that was alive, it's leaves opening, it's branches growing and bending in the wind that Niggle had so often felt and guessed but had so often failed to catch in his art. He gazed at the tree and slowly he lifted his arms and he opened them wide.

It's a gift, he said. And what Tolkien was realizing, because of the New Heavens, New Earth, every single thing that you have ever wanted to accomplish, you will accomplish. Every story you really wish you could write, every course you really wish you could gallop off. Every, in other words, in the New Heavens of New Earth, the things that are in your heart right now, if they're from God, it will be realized.

See, that's your provision. Rest, get the deep rest of hope, the deep rest of peace, and do your work. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank You that Your Son Jesus Christ said, come unto me, O ye who weary and are heavy laden, and I will give You rest. And we ask that You would give us the deep rest of soul

that will enable us to do our work. Help us to serve people through our work, and help us to serve You through our work, and help us to take the things we've learned, and them to our lives and bear fruit in the lives of the people around us and in the work of your kingdom. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. We pray you weren't encouraged by it. To find more gospel-centered resources like today's teaching, you can sign up for email updates at gospelonlife.com. That's gospelonlife.com.

This month's sermons were recorded in 2008 and 2009. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel-on-life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.