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Sermon, Sunday May 31, 2020 Are You Healthy?

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Ephesians 4:1-6

Is your church healthy?

The first three chapters of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians address our position as followers of Jesus. The next three chapters speak about the very practical aspects of our Christian walk. We need to know our position before we can look at our walk.

Paul urges the church in verse one to walk worthy of their calling. Being a follower of Jesus is not a religion or becoming a nice person who follows a set of rules, becoming a Christian is about becoming a new person. Walking a different walk.

The term Christian literally means, “little Christs”. The more we walk with him, the more we look like him, daily being changed into his image.

Paul knew who he was. In verse 1 of chapter 4 he begins, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord…”

Paul didn’t say, “I therefore a prisoner of Rome”. He didn’t let his temporary situation define his position. Paul was a prisoner for Jesus and he surrendered his life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. His position with Christ had led him to be temporarily imprisoned in Rome.

Paul was not defined by His temporary situation. Are you defined by your current work situation, relationships, or financial status?

If you are defined by your temporary situation, you will never know what it means to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

As followers of Jesus we have a common call, we are all saved by grace alone in Christ alone. We share a common experience of grace. And this is what unites us.

A healthy church is marked by unity.

When a church struggles with a lack of unity, it is often because they have taken their eyes off their common call and identity.

In verses 2 and 3, Paul explains how to practically walk worthy of the calling by listing five characteristics of the follower of Jesus: humility, gentleness, patience, love, and unity.

Jesus exemplified these 5 characteristics in his life on the earth:

Humility (Philippians 2:5-8); Gentleness (Matthew 11:28-29); Patience (1 Timothy 1:16); Love (Romans 5:8); and Unity (Ephesians 2:14).

Jesus is our example of how to walk as Christians. The more we look like Jesus individually, the more we live like Jesus relationally, and the more united the church will be.

Looking at each of these individually:

Humility

Paul constantly refers to humility as an essential characteristic of being a Christian in his letters. Humility was not common in the first century, Greek literature shows us that pride was highly valued and admired. We live in such a similar time. If people a thousand years from now look at our culture, they would see a culture obsessed with our own self-image.  

Our culture screams, “exalt yourself, pamper yourself, think about yourself first”. But being a follower of Jesus calls us to walk in the opposite spirit (Philippians 2:3).

Tim Keller wrote, “the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less”.

Gentleness:

This does not mean weakness or timidity, rather it is self-control.

Moses, arguably the greatest leader in the whole Bible, was the role model of meekness and gentleness (Numbers 12:3).

Moses had a special relationship with the Lord. He knew that God would defend him, and God was the source of his strength.

Galatians 5 tells us that gentleness is a fruit of the spirit and it is the way we are to live as believers.

Patience:

For some of us, no matter how fast the microwave heats up the milk, it will never be fast enough. A lack of patience is a display of a lack of humility and a lack of love. In 1 Corinthians 13, the Bible says that love is patient.

So how do we cultivate patience? By relying on the Holy Spirit and meditating on the patience that Christ has shown us (2 Peter 3:9).

Accepting one another in love:

Out of relationship comes grace. Unity in the church is impossible without loving acceptance of our differences. The Bible says in 1 Peter 4:8, “Love covers a multitude of sins”

Diligently keeping unity.

Verse 3 says, “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Notice Paul doesn’t write, “work towards unity”. This is an active maintaining, not a passive resting in unity.

We don’t create unity. We have unity because of the Holy Spirit. God unites us as the body of Christ, our role is to keep the unity.

How do we keep unity?

  • By walking in humility and preferring others.
  • By renouncing harshness and walking in gentleness towards others
  • By setting aside our own agenda and walking in patience.
  • By setting aside our own expectations and walking in love.

Anytime the church lacks unity, it is because we have stopped living in Christlike humility, patience, gentleness, and love.

Then in verses 4 to 6, we have what was possibly an early church creed, which includes seven “one” statements.

One body: the church is the body of Christ.

One Spirit: The Holy Spirit is the one who creates unity and then empowers us to maintain it.

One hope: We share a common hope in Jesus Christ. This hope is not wishful thinking, and the Greek word used here is one of trusting in a certain outcome. Jesus is coming again and those who put their trust in him will be saved.

One Lord: The early believers, by stating that Jesus is Lord, they were proclaiming that Caesar is not Lord. This could mean the death penalty. By declaring Jesus is Lord, we are giving him authority and lordship over every decision of our lives.

One faith: These are the essential truths of our faith.

One baptism: This may refer to the act of being baptized in water, but it probably means what John the Baptist was referring to in Luke 3:16.

One God and Father: We have been adopted into the family of God. Regardless of our ethnicity, we are all part of one body.

This creed includes the doctrine of the trinity. The three in one, Father son and Holy Spirit are in perfect unity. The trinity not only creates unity but serves as the ultimate picture of unity.

A healthy church maintains unity.

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Sermon, Sunday May 24, 2020 Do You Know How Much God Loves You?

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Ephesians 3:14-21
Do you know how much you are loved?

Truthfully, we simply have no ability to grasp the love of God for us.

The Apostle Paul prays two prayers in the first three chapters of the letter to the church in Ephesus. In Ephesians 3:14-21, Paul prays for the church to live out the knowledge of their position in Christ.

The church has incredible amounts of knowledge and teaching available to us, yet we don’t live from the position of that knowledge, and our position as followers of Jesus and citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.

There are three key things we can learn from this prayer by the apostle for the early church.

1: Paul Prays with Humility.
He begins with, “for this reason”. Paul is referring to chapters 1 and 2, and the facts that we are chosen by God, saved by grace, and all called as the body of Christ, being built up as members of the church.

It is crucial that prayer is always from a posture of worship and humility. Prayer begins and ends in worship (See Psalm 95:6-7).
Prayer must begin with worship. If you launch into prayer requests, you are treating God like a vending machine, while He wants a relationship.

But more than humility, Paul approached God with desperation, because he recognized that only God could act on his behalf. Paul knew that believers needed something that only God could give, His power. I don’t think we are aware of how helpless and powerless we are without God. Jesus himself said this in John 15:5.
This should make us humble and desperate, but not only that, it should encourage us, because we are called to be Christ’s ambassadors, to be used by him for his glory by His power.

We can pray with confidence in our position before the throne of God as beloved children (Ephesians 2:18).
In Christ, we have unlimited access to the Father. We can call Him Father and He is unimaginably rich and powerful.

2: Praying for the Fullness of God’s Power and Love.
Paul presents his requests to God in these verses. They seem to flow together and we lose some of the impact of them, but they are like a staircase that climbs to a crescendo, each one separated by the conjunction, “that” (See Ephesians 3:16-19)
Paul begins by praying for strength in the inner man. Strength to stand firm against temptation, strength to courageously proclaim the Gospel, strength to love our neighbor the way Jesus loves them, and strength for many more areas of our life.

Our culture places so much emphasis on the outer man, whether it is Instagram filters, or a supplement to develop ripped muscles overnight. In our culture, image is such an idol.
But the inner person, the soul, is the only eternal part of our being. Everything else is fading away (Proverbs 31:30).

Paul prays in verse 17, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…”
When the Holy Spirit takes up residence in us, he is transforming us to reflect the character of Jesus Christ. This is the process of sanctification that we are all living out.

In the next verses, Paul moves from praying for power, to praying for them to know how much they are loved by God. How much we need this revelation of God’s love today.

When we understand the love of God for us, we easily submit to his perfect will and our lives will become lives of radical obedience, because we know that whatever He asks us to do, He is asking out of love (Galatians 2:20).

There is a huge difference between knowledge of love and experience of love.
I can tell Debbie and my children that I love them all day long, but if I never show affection or care, it will be knowledge that remains intellectual.
This is more than simply reading about the love of Jesus, but experiencing it because of the Gospel and the power of God living in us and through us as we submit to his perfect plan for our lives.

Have you moved from intellectual knowledge of the love of God to the experiential knowledge of God’s love? (See Romans 8:31-39).
Paul knew his readers wouldn’t get it. He knew this understanding of God’s love only comes by a supernatural revelation of God.

Try as we might to comprehend the love of God, we need God to show us how much He loves us and I contend that even then, we still only have scratched the surface of understanding how much we are loved by the creator of the universe.
We are never meant to experience and grow in this knowledge on our own. We need to share stories of His love. We need to encourage one another with miracles and experiences that we share together. God intends us to live in community with other believers as we reflect on the love of Christ in and through the Gospel message.

Paul ends this long sentence in verse 19, with the why of God’s love, “…that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Simply stated, being filed with the fullness of God is to be all that God has called us to be to be spiritually mature. We become spiritually mature, as we know and experience the love of God for us.

Do you know how much you are loved? (see Romans 5:8).

3: Praying with Expectation.
Finally, we come to the doxology in the middle of the letter. But it is a dividing section in the letter and it is an overflow of praise and worship.

This revelation of God’s love is the most important bedrock and foundation for all our Christian life. It begins with God’s love, and if God doesn’t reveal His love to us, everything else is striving to please God.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

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Sermon, Sunday May 17, 2020 – You are Being Watched.

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Ephesians 3:1-13  

Do you know that you are being watched?

In 1984, there was a hit song, “I always feel like, somebodies watching me” by Rockwell, and as the church, this is true of us today. We as the church are being watched all the time.

In our society, we have a consumer mindset when it come to the church. The church is there for us, right? We view the church as a place where we gather to encourage, challenge, disciple and mobilize people for missions. These are all good purposes for the church, but they are not the most important function of the church.

Paul, writing to the church in Ephesus, lets them know that he has been entrusted to bring them the Gospel message by the grace of God (Ephesians 3:2).

Grace is a gift of God, and an essential key for being a follower of Jesus. We are all called to fulltime ministry in whatever role in society God has given us. But we must remember that we cannot serve the Lord in our own strength. Our very best is never good enough, we need to operate In Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Serving God in your own strength will lead to burnout and disappointment.

Paul was given grace from God to proclaim the mystery that gentiles are now adopted into the family of God to share in the promises of God that were previously only for the Israelites (Ephesians 3:6). Gentiles are all people groups around the world who are not Jews (Romans 9:24-25). Aren’t you glad for the mystery?

In verse 7, Paul writes that he is a minister of the Gospel, but the Greek word also means servant. He doesn’t see being a servant as a negative thing. He sees it as an incredible privilege. Paul was humble and knew that he was not operating in his own strength (Ephesians 3:8).

To be a servant of the Lord, we cannot do what God calls us to do in our own strength. This is not just for pastors and missionaries. We all need God’s grace, because we are all called to serve the Lord in the role He has placed us in life.

If you are able to do what God calls you to do in your own strength, it might not be the call of God on your life.

The call of god on your life will always stretch you beyond your own abilities.

Verses 10 and 11 of Ephesians 3 take the mystery of the church and the call of God to a completely different level. God’s intent, from before the creation of the universe, was that the church would be used to teach the manifold wisdom of God to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

Theologians agree that these “rulers and authorities”, are all spiritual beings outside of our visible realm: angels, demons, good and bad heavenly beings. The angels look on and marvel at the grace and wisdom of God (1 Peter 1:12).  Demons look at the church and know that their rule on the earth is coming to an end once and for all.

We know God knows all things and that He is all wise. Wisdom is found in God. God is teaching the universe by taking people from all nations, all ethnic people groups from all backgrounds and bringing them together into one body, the church, the body of Christ.

The church is preaching a cosmic sermon to the universe.

Kent Hughes writes, “the inescapable conclusion is that the angels watch us because we are part of the mystery!… We have a far bigger and more observant audience than any of us realize!”

Never underestimate the glory of God in the church!

The church is not the teacher. God is the revealer of His wisdom, God is the teacher and we are the whiteboard. God uses the church to reveal his wisdom and glory.

The global church is so much more essential than we could ever imagine. there are cosmic realities that we know nothing about.

The church is so much more than meeting together and enjoying each-other’s company.

Getting back to the initial question; do you know that you are being watched?

Does the fact of knowing that you are being watched, change the way you think about being part of the church?

Before you decide not to be a part of a community outreach, remember, you are being watched.

Before you think about gossiping, saying some negative word about a fellow member of the church, remember you are being watched.

Before you dismiss the value of gathering-together, sleeping in rather than preparing your heart to receive from the Lord in worship and hearing His word, remember you are being watched.

This is all said as part of the mystery.

I don’t want to make you feel manipulated or guilted into coming to church rather I want to impress on you the privilege, the absolute honor we have to be used by God to declare His wisdom to the watching universe.

In these uncertain times, God’s mystery is being revealed through the church. You are part of God revealing His wisdom to the universe of heavenly powers.

Be encouraged. Lift your eyes and see the glory of God being revealed as the church gathers to worship.

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Mother’s Day May 10, 2020

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THE UNCONDITIONAL LOVE OF GOD

By: Debbie Barnes

Motherhood looks different for everyone. Different seasons, different roles, difficult seasons, difficult roles, less challenging seasons, less challenging roles…

Let me start at the beginning of motherhood for me.  Athol and I had tried to fall pregnant for many years, and this was a difficult and painful season for both of us.  Then the Lord blessed us with 2 children through adoption, and with Christie, we were literally thrust into parenthood overnight!

In the business of trying to be the perfect wife and mother, of trying to prove that I had this motherhood thing under control, I began to neglect my personal walk with the Lord.  I was so consumed with the gift of the child, that I neglected the giver of the child, the giver of that life itself.  I was looking for something, yearning for something in my relationship with my children.  And no matter how hard I tried, that sense of complete and utter fulfillment was always just beyond my reach.  I didn’t understand it.  And then one morning it dawned on me.  Motherhood is completely selfless.  My children were not there to meet my needs, I was there to meet theirs.    

This brings me to my first point: 

  1. God is enough, He is sufficient to meet all my needs. (Philippians 4:19)

God was there to meet my needs, and I had walked away from Him.  It was only after I rekindled my relationship with the Lord that I found that true fulfillment. 

And only once I found all I needed in my relationship with God did I stop looking for God in my relationship with my children! How liberating! 

Only then did I find my joy in motherhood and could enjoy my children for who they were.  This not only applies to motherhood, but to all relationships, whether it be between a husband and wife, siblings, other family members and friends.  It is only once you find everything you need in your relationship with God that will you stop looking for God in all your relationships with others.

2)    God’s love is unconditional. (1 John 4: 19 and Ephesians 3: 17-19).

As most of you know, Athol and I became licensed foster parents in 2016, and this opened our eyes to a whole new world.  With Joshie’s autism and other special needs, we feel that the Lord has equipped us and called us to fostering children with autism and other special needs. 

Now it’s easy to love your own children but not so easy to love someone else’s, especially when they come from a background of trauma, abuse, and neglect.   BUT GOD!  He gives us a supernatural love for every child that comes into our home.  He gives us the ability to put aside the bruises from kicking, biting, scratching, screaming etc.,  and the ability to tuck this child into bed, kiss him or her on the cheek, and say “I love you.”  To see each child through His lens, as His beautiful creation.

I get really frustrated when I share that I am a foster mom, and people respond with “Oh, I could never do that, I would become too attached.”  Does that mean they assume that I don’t get attached?  If, as a foster parent, you don’t get attached, then there is something seriously wrong. When we have a foster child in our home, we love them as deeply as our own children, with the supernatural love that comes from the Father Himself. 

How much does God love us?  So much so that he gave us His only begotten Son so that we may enjoy an eternity with Him if we believe in Him as our Lord and Savior.

3)    God equips us when He calls us.

When God calls you, He will equip and prepare you to effectively complete that which He is calling you to do. He knows us and will use everything about us to bring Glory to his name. ( see Hebrews 13: 21  and 2 Timothy 3:16-17)

The first day of our first foster placement did not go well.  We were this child’s 4th foster home in 6 weeks, and he was severely autistic, non-verbal, and aggressive. By that evening, I was full of bruises and bite marks.  I remember crying after getting everyone in bed that night, and Athol put his arms around me and kept saying that things would get better.  I turned to Athol and remember saying, ” I’m not crying for me, I’m crying for him. How can we expect him to change when no-one is prepared to invest in his life or give him the tools to change?”

 We decided that night to stand in the gap for this child, to fight for him and his needs, just as Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for us.  Athol and I went to weekly therapy with him, and reinforced positive behavior daily.  Slowly but surely, we started to notice change.  He didn’t like being touched, but by the end of his time with us before he was reunified with his biological mom, he was crawling onto my lap, putting my hand on top of his head to ruffle his hair, and putting my hand on his back for me to tickle his back whenever he could.  Christie was even able to teach him to say, “I love you”. His aggressive behavior decreased the more he saw us as a family model loving behavior toward one another and underwent a total transformation as he started to mimic the same loving behavior at home and at school.

4)  It’s not about us. 

Everything we do should point right back to Jesus and glorify the Father. I have not shared these stories with you to get a pat on the back.  I share them because I am nothing without God.  He doesn’t need me, yet I get to walk with Him and follow His leading every day.  And every time I am with Him, He fills me and equips me for the day ahead.  He is the source of the unconditional love I can pour out daily, and He can do the same for you.

Just as being a mother and foster mom is not about me, it’s about my children, and it’s my relationship with the Lord that enables me to pour into my children out of the abundance of love and joy that the Father pours into me through my relationship with Him.  So too, Christianity is not about us either.  It is about bringing glory to the Father through everything we say and do.

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Sermon, Sunday May 3, 2020 What are You Building?

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Ephesians 2:11-22

What are you building?

The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church in Ephesus who were Gentiles that became followers of Jesus. The admission of the Gentiles into the early church was an important time in church history as we read in Acts 15.

Paul continues in verses 11 and 12, writing about the desperate plight of those who are outside of the promises of God. This is the former condition of all who have not put their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. Before you and I trusted in Jesus as Lord; before God reached down and drew us in, we were spiritually dead and without hope.

I think the reason we see weak churches filled with believers who are more interested in their own welfare than the commission that God has given us, is because we have forgotten how desperate we were before Jesus. If we remember where we came from, we will never have a problem praising God and being grateful for what He has done in our lives.

But then we have verse 13, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

But now in Christ! Everything changed when Jesus died and rose again. The blood of Jesus is the full and final payment for our sins and we have been brought near.

The Gentiles were not allowed to come into the temple. They were restricted to what was called the “court of the Gentiles”. But when Jesus died on the cross, the temple veil inside the holy place was torn by the hand of God, signifying that now all people had access to the throne of God. Jesus tore down the barriers of religion and race by his death on the cross (Ephesians 2:14). Jesus removed the barriers between races and he ushered in the new covenant (verses 15 and 16).

When Jesus preached the sermon on the mount, he said in Matthew 5:17, “…I have not come to abolish them (the Law) but to fulfill them”. The Law of Moses was for the Jewish people, but it pointed to Jesus and the need for a perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of Sins.

This does not mean that the moral requirements of God’s law do not apply to us, rather, the the blood of Jesus atones for our sins as we confess and repent of our sins.  

But more than the fulfilling of the law, verse 15 says, “His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two”

The purpose of God was to create in Jesus one new humanity, that is the body of Christ, the church. JB Philipps in his paraphrase, uses the term “fused together”, meaning God has taken all ethnic people groups and fused us together in Christ. Welded together into one body.

This is incredible but also a warning that in the church there is absolutely no place for racism.

In verse 19, Paul writes that we all were once foreigners and strangers, but through Christ we are made fellow citizens of one new nation (1 Peter 2:9).

But Paul takes it one step further, we are not simply citizens; we are members of the family, adopted into God’s family. There is a huge difference between being a citizen and being family. Many believers are citizens, but don’t know what it means to be family.

The church is not a building or a place we go to attend an event, the church is family, living life and being on mission together.

In verses 20-22, Paul uses the analogy of a building being built. Verse 22 gives the indication of an ongoing work which is not yet completed. Paul writes that the foundation of this building is found in the Bible. All the Word of God points towards God’s redemption story in Jesus Christ.

Sadly, many churches have moved away from the Bible as being the central foundation and authority of the church. But the church will cease to exist if we discard the authority of God’s Word.

Remember the parable of the wise and foolish builders in Matthew 7. The wise man built his house on the rock and the foolish man built his house on the sand. The storms of life came up and destroyed the house built on a weak foundation, but not the one built on the rock. The church is a spiritual building that needs to be built on the solid foundation of God’s word.

Churches that are built on weak teaching and saying feel-good platitudes, will fall when the real tests come. The body of Christ needs to be built up on the sure foundation of God’s word.

These verses are all about construction, the building up of the body of Christ as a temple for God to dwell by the Holy Spirit. This is the purpose of everything, the glory of God and the presence of God with man.

As part of the family, the Body of Christ, we get to be a part of the construction team, working with God’s power to see the Kingdom of God grow and expand as we invite others from the outside in.  We get invited to spend our time building things that have eternal value and impact, not focusing on things that have temporary value that will eventually be consumed by fire.

Be a part of what God is doing through the church. That may mean going to your neighbor or going to the ends of the earth.

When the pandemic restrictions are lifted, let us be careful not to get trapped back into the craziness of building temporary temples. Too many people are happy just to be in the building,  but the real joy of being a follower of Jesus comes from being on the construction team.

You may be an accountant, lawyer, waiter, cash register attendant, teacher, medical professional, custodian, painter or any other role in life, you are equally positioned to be a part of the building of the Kingdom of God. Never look at your days as being insignificant.

Choose today to live with passion and purpose, living a life of eternal significance, don’t waste a moment of the time God has given you.