Sermons on Spiritual Maturity
“In this passage, Paul shares that he has been praying for the believers in Ephesus. So what is it that Paul has been praying? He prayed that they would be 1) strengthened in the inner man, 2) comprehend the measure of God’s love, 3) know God, not just know about Him, and 4)to dream big dreams for God. These are essential steps for becoming one of Christ’s disciples.”
Last week, we were studying from the first half of Galatians 5. We learned that we have freedom in Christ, but that there’s a paradox in that the freedom we have in Christ is the freedom to do what is right. The problem is that we often choose to do what we want rather than…
We are studying from Ephesians 4 and we want to focus specifically on the one another statement here in this chapter. In order to do this, we have to spend time looking at everything else in the chapter. We must always understand a text within its context, because a text cannot mean what it never…
Paul and the believers in Ephesus were experiencing true repentance and its effects. True repentance always has an effect—on both the life of the one repenting and to all those around that one. This morning, we hope to examine some of these effects of repentance with the goal of challenging ourselves to experience true repentance…
When writing to the church at Corinth, Paul said, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Was Paul a perfect example of Christ? Was Paul able to surpass the example of Jesus in the marathon that his life became? No! But we can say without hesitation that Paul was one of—if not the greatest champion of the faith. Again, he is simply saying, “Do whatever I do, as I attempt to emulate Jesus!” In this passage in 2 Timothy 3, Paul is asking Timothy to remember the way he had lived his life before him and emulate his example.
How can we achieve a family life that always brings honor to God—a family life where God has no rivals? I believe that the book of Ephesians gives us six suggestions for how to keep God as our priority in our day to day family life. They are: 1) watch our walk, 2) steward our time, 3) understand God’s will, 4) submit to God’s Spirit, 5) focus on family worship, and 6) submit to one another.
When did priority become priorities? How can multiple things be the “most important” thing? The fact is that our culture today pushes the idea of ‘priorities’ but our effectiveness is drastically limited when our priorities are multi-faceted. In this message, we try to lay aside our pre-conceived ideas about priorities in our lives and look to see what God’s priority is in Scripture. Simply put, God’s priority is for us to be conformed to the image of His Son. But as Voddie Baucham explained, “Instead of striving for godliness and multigenerational faithfulness, many Christians have settled for just getting by. Unfortunately our children are paying the price.”
Tolerance has become a buzz word in the twenty-first century. In a study prepared by Probe Ministries International, Scott Scruggs wrote, “In response to a survey concerning beliefs about God, a sixteen-year-old girl replied, ‘In my mind, the only people who are wrong are the people who will not accept different beliefs as being, well, acceptable.’ This girl believed that the only real sin is to not accept or tolerate other people’s beliefs.” If tolerance is respecting someone’s beliefs, does that mean that we are being intolerant if we attempt to convince someone to be a Christian? Does the Bible teach us to be intolerant?
In this message, we will take some time diving deeper into the fourth chapter of Ephesians. We spent a great deal of time focused on the single phrase “speaking the truth in love” in this morning’s message entitled, “If Christianity is all about love, why are Christians so intolerant?” So tonight, I hope to take a wider view of Ephesians 4 to discover some of the values that define the Body of Christ.