Guest teacher, Kirk Crager, explores the very practical and immensely important question; What is Jesus’ vision for the church?

God gives us the strength we need to endure, by giving us His own life and Holy Spirit. But strength from the Holy Spirit doesn't just that we have new kind of religious fortitude. The Spirit makes us strong, specifically by making Christ real to us, among us, and through us.

The Gospel reconciles us individually to God, but it's reach doesn't stop there. The Gospel simultaneously reconciles us to one another! Jesus has established peace for us with God, and by that same work has established peace for us with one another.

When we look around and see the mess and brokenness of this world, it is fair to wonder How is God going to bring any of these things, let alone, everything together in Christ?

Paul has just described the Gospel and God's redemption plan, and at the center is the church. So how does this Gospel shape what he does next? What is Paul's heart for us, the church, and how should the Gospel shape our hearts for God and for one another?

JB Van Hoogen :: Inheritance Secured

Paul sums up his rant of praise with the conclusion that God's purposes and our redemption have culminated in our adoption and that we possess an inheritance that only He can give and that only He can guarantee.

JB Van Hoogen :: Redemption and Revelation.

Paul describes the kind of grace that has been "lavished on us in the Beloved One (Christ!)" as both a redeeming grace and a revealing grace. What does it mean to "have redemption" and how does redemption result in new knowledge of God "with all wisdom and understanding?"

JB Van Hoogen :: Every Spiritual Bessing

Paul begins his letter with the wild statement that God "has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ." When, why, and how have we received something so eternally and unfathomably wonderful as "every spiritul blessing"?

JB Van Hoogen :: Ephesians: Everything Together in Christ.

At the right time God was pleased to enact a cosmic plan to bring everything together in Christ. And at the center of that plan, is not an army or political revolution, but a church. The book of Ephesians is a beautiful letter from Paul, that reads like a sermon and explores the implications of God's plan for us and for the world in Christ.

JB Van Hoogen :: BGC Values series. The last installment in our 5-part series on BGC’s core values. We have responded to the simple invitation of Christ, and are called to contend for a "sincere and pure devotion to Christ" as Paul exhorts the Corinthian church. What does this sincerity and purity of devotion mean for our life as Christians and a church? It means a commitment to simplicity.