No matter how hard we try, there are times we can’t just “pray the pain away.” It’s important that we realize that, when we face times of deep depression, this doesn’t mean God has left us or that we are doing anything wrong. Jeremiah was doing exactly what God wanted him to do, yet still felt sad about his journey and the willingness of the people to continue to defy God; but Jeremiah found peace with God through worship, and through prayer, and through the belief that God’s presence is undeniable, even when we have a hard time seeing him.

It’s easy to wish good things for good people when they are facing tough circumstances. It’s more difficult to wish good for people that are wicked. Jonah was sent to Nineveh to offer the people grace in exchange for their wickedness, and he wasn’t excited to go. They were wicked, and they had earned God’s wrath… Jonah wanted destruction. Yet, God’s measuring stick is perfection, and we all fall short–even Jonah. God uses a plant and a worm in the midst of a hot day in the desert to teach Jonah just how far He is willing to go to show His creation how much they are loved.

God will restore us and give us the strength to carry on so we can experience his greatness more fully.

Ephesians is a book that talks about the church, talks about how to live as part of the family of Jesus, talks about relationships, and talks at length about how we can live in ways that demonstrate the love of Jesus. But then, it ends by talking about war. It may seem strange to end this letter this way, but the fact is, everything we learn about how to act should culminate with action–and we are all in a spiritual battle. By doing the things the book of Ephesians has taught us to this point, we are outfitting ourselves with the necessary tools for protecting ourselves and prepare for fighting the spiritual battle that exists all around us.

Submitting to one another out of reverence to Christ doesn't just apply to husbands and wives, like we talked about last week.  Sometimes the responsibility for maintaining a Christ-like relationship isn't equal.  Sometimes you have to approach it as a child, from a place of honor and obedience.  Sometimes it's as a parent, owning extra responsibility for teaching and guiding.  Sometimes it's as a slave working through our situation even though it's not what we may have chosen.  And always, as masters, it's about understanding that we need to treat each other equally since we are all slaves to the father who gifts us grace and adoption.

Submission is a funny thing. None of us mind submitting answers on a test, or submitting applications or paperwork; but when it comes to submitting to the will of another person, people can get a little defensive–especially when it’s our own imperfect spouse. Yet, we are told to love each other like Jesus loved his family, and for Jesus that meant going to the grave for the sake of imperfect sinners. The God of all things subjected himself to the wrath of sin and death for the sake of those that he loved. May we be willing to submit our will to His as we seek to better love one another.

More rules! This week we are looking at 3 categories God expects us to apply to our own behavior as believers. He says to: walk in love, walk in light, and walk in wisdom. When we walk, we do so without thinking about it. It isn’t a race, it isn’t a competition, and it isn’t a sprint. It’s a stroll. It’s second nature. It isn’t something we have to concentrate on. That’s how we should model Christ to others… naturally, experiencing the light and love and wisdom of God, and reflecting it to everyone we come into contact with.

Growing up, we all had rules. You probably had a set of "house rules" that were different from the rules your friends had to follow. Maybe their rules were more strict, or maybe they were more lenient, but we all knew that their were consequences for not following the rules. The rules of religion are similar, outside of Christianity, because they are all designed to make us into someone good. Thanks to the grace of God offered through Jesus, we know that the "house rules" we follow as Christians don’t make us good–only God is good, and only through him can we do any good at all. What we accomplish by following God’s rules as a response to his grace is that we bring the goodness of God’s grace into view for others as we serve, and he provides for us as well as we follow him and his house rules.

God calls us all to unity… but in what ways? In our deeply polarized world, it seems like every call for unity is an affront to something else. When we practice unity in the Spirit we are unified toward the only valuable, eternal thing–a chance to enter into a relationship with God, and to experience the joy of serving our maker. And that kind of unity doesn’t push people away… it draws them in.

 

 

Series: Ephesians - One Big Happy Family

Title: Strength In numbers

Scripture: Ephesians 3:14-21, John 14:12-14

Big Idea: The power of God is cemented in his grace, and God’s expectation is that–through the knowledge of that power–we’d join together to teach and encourage and inspire one another, and to bring the knowledge of the grace of God to others as we follow God together, as one body of believers. There is great power in the gathered assembly of the family of God.