Ephesians: Taming Anger

Ephesians 4:26-27 

Anger has caused more ruin than perhaps any other thing. It has destroyed marriages, friendships, churches, companies, music groups and entire nations. It is the reason for violence and has led to hundreds of thousands of people being slaughtered in battle. Many people are in prison for life because of anger. It’s not a new problem but is as old as Cain and Abel. Learning to tame this “tiger” is essential in order to possess a joyful life. Many people are in despair secretly over the way anger hijacks their heart and drives them to say and do foolish things. Or the way they are plunged into an inward confusion. There’s hope. Even the most angry people can learn from the Master (Jesus) and become meek and lowly in heart. This is the wonder and glory of God’s grace! This message will teach you not only how to control your anger when it surfaces, but teach you how to become the kind of person who is slow to anger by default.

Ephesians: Speak the Truth

Ephesians 4:25

As the nature of truth has become increasingly unclear in our culture, the church is charged to “put away falseness” and “speak the truth” to our neighbors. This message focuses on how the church interacts with the God of truth and how we ought to interact with each other more deeply in truth.

Ephesians: You Must!

Ephesians 4:17-24

As humans we find ourselves being commanded to do a great many things by various people throughout our lives. When we hear a command we immediately begin to process whether we really need to heed the command or not. In other words, we decide how serious we should take the command. That's what this message is about. It's centered around the urgent words of the Apostle to us - "you must". The real punch of the sermon is about the way we have a tendency to desensitize ourselves from God's commands. It's a call to (as Scripture describes) tremble at the Word. This message is for everyone but especially for those who feel a measure of hardness of heart setting in. 

Standalone Sermons: Conscience

Today we have a guest preacher, Mike Caparelli, who is the director of Unmuted. The mission of Unmuted is to give victims of various kinds of traumatic experiences their voices back. Mike speaks from 2 Samuel 13 and the idea of the conscience. He challenges listeners to stay attuned to what their God-given conscience is telling them, and warns of the consequences of stifling the conscience.

Ephesians: How Truth Transforms

Ephesians 4:15-16

The great aim in the Christian life is to become like Jesus. It is to display the very life of Christ as it grows in and through us to the world. This work of spiritual formation in the church is accomplished when each part is working properly in the practice of speaking the truth in love. In other words, the church equips the church; the church builds the church; the church makes the church grow. As important as pastors are in helping the church to grow spiritually, it is God’s design that the church grows by the interdependence of all the parts working together. Church people minister to church people. This message is an encouragement to each of us to play our part well in speaking and receiving truth in the church community. Practical instructions are given in the last segment of the teaching to help us develop more honest relationships. 

Ephesians: Gifted

Ephesians 4:7-14 

Likely, we’ve all heard someone described as “gifted”. Usually, this word is used to describe a special type of person that possesses unique qualities. It carries the idea that most people—us common folks—cannot and should not be described as gifted. In our church experience we tend to regard orators, music leaders or outgoing winsome personalities who are good at evangelism, as gifted. In honest moments we wonder why others are gifted and we are not. But the Bible does not support these notions at all and, in fact, teaches us that every child of God is gifted by God to contribute to the grand design of God in building the Church of God. 

Ephesians: Unity

Ephesians 4:1-6

We find ourselves living in a world filled with people who we disagree with about a great many matters. As Christians, we also find ourselves in a Church world filled with people we disagree with about a great many matters. Is unity even possible? What can be do to foster unity with others? This talk comes from Ephesians 4:1-6 but also comes from the many experiences I’ve had over three decades of deep involvement in the Church. Unity is not only attainable for God’s people, it is the very prayer of Jesus (John 17). This message is very practical in helping us to work through disagreements with others.

Ephesians: The Power Within

Ephesians 3:20-21

One of the greatest tactics of Satan is to try to convince us that we are powerless. He lies to us and tells us that we aren't holy enough, righteous enough, prayerful enough to be effective. He tells us we are still too sinful for our words and actions to make any real difference in people's lives. When we allow ourselves to be duped, the result is discouragement, silence and inaction. The benediction of Paul in these verses is a reminder that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond what we can imagine - through us! We are more powerful than we know! This is a message of encouragement to the child of God to not shrink back in unbelief but speak out for God and keep laboring for the advance of the gospel.

Ephesians: Experiencing God's Love

Ephesians 3:14-19

This message from Ephesians 3 is a prayer for God’s love to be made real in us. When we come to faith we begin to understand the Father’s love in small measure, but this understanding grows more and more through the years. Even after we learn all the Scriptures about love and hear countless teachings about God’s love, even after singing songs for years about God’s love—we still need fresh revelations! The prayer of Paul is, essentially, that we would fully comprehend what we already know, namely, God’s love. Knowing this love is more than head knowledge. God Himself, at times, opens the eyes of our heart and enables us to see it in all of its glory. My prayer for this message is that it would create in us a greater hunger to experience the love of God above all else and that we’d be stirred to seek after it. Nothing is more transformative than experiencing the loving embrace of the Heavenly Father! 

Standalone Sermons: Good Samaritan

I intended on resuming our sermon series on the book of Ephesians but about the middle of this week I felt moved to stay on the theme of racial justice. I’ve been reading a lot and watching a lot of content lately and trying to get perspectives from every angle. Listening to a black pastor (TD Jakes) share his story this week with Hillsong NYC pastor (Carl Lenz) left me undone. I admit that there is so much suffering in the world that I can hear about and feel numb to. But when I listened to this pastor, it was as if the Lord Himself was helping me to understand and feel empathy. In one point of the conversation the pastor was talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan and it became the seed for this week's sermon.