TRUE UNITY IS IMPOSSIBLE APART FROM CHRIST

In Eph 2:11-22, Paul reminds the Ephesian church that when they were saved by grace and raised up with Christ, they entered into a new life with a new people. When they became united to Christ by faith, they became united with everyone else who's become united to Christ by faith - regardless of how different, divided from, or at odds with they might have been before. God saves us as individuals into a community - a people, a body, a family of God made up of all those who have been brought near to God through the cross of Christ in the power of the Spirit. There's no way to be a Christian apart from belonging to this family. There's no way to have peace with God apart from walking in peace with each other. In the Church, God holds out to the world a true end to the hostility we have toward one another, because in his cross, Jesus Christ took our hostility upon himself in order to kill the hostility between us. 

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ALL GRACE ALL THE WAY

Eph 2:1-10 is the story of every believer's salvation. Our journey from death to life in which God took us from being drowned on the bottom of the ocean floor to raised with Christ in the heights of heaven (2:6). And all this has come to us by grace. Apart from any earning or deserving. Not because of good works, but for the purpose of good works (2:8-10). By grace we've been saved from God's wrath to live for God's glory. In the story of our salvation, God's done all the work, and we get to walk in the joy of it. 

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THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD

If the Church is what God is doing in the world, what makes the Church go? What energizes, fuels, and motivates the mission of the Church to extend God's grace and establish God's peace? Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:15-23 provides the answer: the Holy Spirit. The Ephesian church then, and our little church now, however ordinary, unimpressive, or in-progress we might be, are filled with the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him to God's right hand. Listen to Sunday’s sermon to learn more about the work of the Spirit in the church.

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BECAUSE GOD’S SOVEREIGN GRACE IS MARVELOUS

The Church is what God is doing in the world. And as we look at her, what do we see at the center of her life? The glory of God. The most important thing about the Church is not the Church, it's God. In Ephesians, Paul can hardly make it through the letter's opening before he erupts in praise to the God of the Church. He reaches back before the beginning of time (1:4-5), journeys to the climatic moment of salvation history (1:6-7), enters into the present lives of his readers (1:11-13), and then raises their eyes upward to the grand ending God is writing for his chief protagonist (1:14). From start to finish, every movement of God has had one goal in mind: the praise of his glorious grace. The Church exists because God desired to possess a people to enjoy his glory forevermore. The Church is most faithful, joyful, and pure when she is as about God as he is about himself.

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THE CHURCH IS WHAT GOD IS DOING IN THE WORLD

Coming out of the series in Habakkuk, we've been meditating upon the truth that God is always up to something even if it’s hard to see. He’s always working good for his people and advancing his purposes for the world. This Sunday we asked the question, “In this grand story that God is writing, who’s the main character through whom he advances the plot?” In our lives today, where should we look to see God at work toward his great aim of uniting all things in Christ? (Eph 1:10) Where is his amazing grace most evidently poured out and through what instrument is he making peace in the world? The Book of Ephesians gives us the answer: The Church.

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PRAY AND GO!

Between the end of our time in Habakkuk and the start of our Ephesians sermon series, we were joined by guest preacher, Jim Donohue to be encouraged in our gospel mission. The mission we have to spread the joy of Jesus to our neighbors who are like sheep without a shepherd. In a city where the harvest is plentiful and we need all the laborers we can get! Far from being overwhelmed by this task, we’re encouraged to lean in with faith that the Lord of the harvest, the Great Shepherd of our souls, will give us all we need - the people, the power, and the grace - to gather in the harvest for himself. So we pray & we go!

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WE LOOK TO CHRIST TO LEARN HOW TO SUFFER WELL

This past Sunday was our final Sunday wrapping up what we've learned in the book of Habakkuk. We turned to the letter of 1 Peter - a textbook on how to suffer well as a Christian. The believers then lived as exiles in a world in which there was no social benefit to being a Christian, they were regularly slandered and insulted by their neighbors, and they faced the same struggle against "the passions of the flesh, which wage war" against our souls as we do today (1 Pet 2:11-12). So how did Peter encourage them? How does he teach them to suffer well? By telling them to suffer like Christ. Why does he do this? Because Jesus Christ himself puts what we learned from Rom 8:31 ("If God is for us, who can be against us?") to the test and proves it's 100% true. We look to him and we learn how to suffer well as we live as exiles on the way to our eternal home. 

*Due to some technical difficulties, the opening portion of the sermon audio was not captured. You can read the manuscript here to fill in the gap and listen to the rest of the sermon below.

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YOUR ROCK SOLID CONFIDENCE OF HIS GOODNESS

In this treasure of a text, the song we've been singing all along in Habakkuk reaches its crescendo. How can we be confident beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is good and always working good? Because of Romans chapter 8. Reasoning from the gospel, Paul tells believers that if God saved you ("he did not spare his Son") then God will surely sustain you ("how will he not freely with him give us all things?") through anything and everything. If the cross, then the grace to live for God's glory and our joy in and through every situation, circumstance, and EVEN suffering of life as we press on toward glory. 

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WE CAN REJOICE BECAUSE GOD DELIVERS ON HIS PROMISES

As the book of Habakkuk comes to a close, complaining gives way to rejoicing. Lament is transformed into praise as the prophet who once saw only bad, perceives his good God by faith. He looks backward so that he can move forward. In the midst of his present trouble, he recounts God's mighty works of old, and resolves to wait upon the Lord to bring justice and salvation once again. Like Habakukk, when we look out on our lives and all seems lost, we're faced with lack, and things aren't as they should be, we need behold the God who saves. 

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BECAUSE IT REVEALS THE GOOD GOD TO US

The past few Sundays, we've been reflecting on the goodness of God. Even when it doesn't seem like it, he's always good & always working good. And if God is good, then his word is most certainly good as well. In the midst of the valleys of life, we need God's word because it reveals the good God to us. We turn to Psalm 119 because it holds God out to us declaring, "You are good and do good" (119:66). Because of this, the Scriptures are a possession greater "than thousands of gold and silver pieces," (119:72). As we meditate upon the treasures God has laid up for us in his word, our faith and joy in the God who spoke the word is strengthened and deepened. 

LISTEN TO THE SERMON HERE